I need a lot of dictionaries with synonyms to write this article.
It’s really impossible to write about one of the greatest day of my life – just a single day was enough to visit:

– Astonishing Swedish Lappland
– The highest mountain in Sweden – Kebnekaise
– The immense Swedish and Norwegian frozen lakes – Torne, Kalix, Vittangi, Könkämä & Rautasälven
– The most coldest hotel in the world – Ice Hotel
– The oldest wooden Sami church in the world
– The biggest iron mine in the world – Kiruna mine
– The deepest located mushroom farm – Kiruna Svampodling
– The most beautiful sunset next to the Atlantic Ocean
– The magic Aurora/Nordic lights
– The mysterious fjords in Norway
– More than 200 amazing reindeer and 500km within a single day on icy roads!

Of course now you see the list and say that it’s impossible to see all the sights during one day, but when the sun is rising at 3 o’clock in the morning and almost never sets, that’s possible. Starting May in Lappland (Northern part of Sweden and Finland) nights are missing at all for more than 50 days ❗

Departing to Lappland

We first took the Arlanda Express to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, which is the fastest way to go to the airport, it is kind of Swedish Maglev Train.

We caught our flight to Kiruna, which is a quite big city in the North of Sweden. Kiruna actually has the most Northern airport in Sweden.. quite small.. I think it’s even smaller than the airport in Moldova (which is considered as probably the smallest airport in world 🙂 ).
When we arrived, I felt really happy. I finally saw snow again! Real snow! Not just the bit of white thing trying to be snow that was appearing in Stockholm. There was so much snow that you even can’t see the road signs!

After settling in at our hostel, which is called Yellow House, we put on warm clothes (actually we put on all of our clothes, since the fancy Stockholm outfit is not suitable for temperatures below -25 C) and went to look around.
Yellow House hostel

Kiruna is right in the middle of Europe’s final great wilderness. It is a multi-cultural region, in which the Sami, Finnish and Swedish cultures live side by side. It is a place of many contrasts, where the dark blue sky of winter is illuminated by the dazzling Northern Lights.

Kiruna is indeed an interesting blend of contrasts; modern urban planning against a backdrop of pristine nature, high technology and traditional reindeer husbandry, large-scale mining and environmental research.

This exciting combination has made it northern Sweden’s most-visited municipality.

Kiruna Mine and Shii-take mushroom Farm

With more than 400 kilometers of asphalt roads, Kiruna mine (Kiirunavaara in Swedish) is the world’s biggest underground iron ore mine. Today mining takes place at a depth of 1,000 meters.

Kiruna mine during the evening

Entrance in the mine

Gold and Iron ore

This whole trip to Lappland was planned many weeks in advance. We really didn’t want to go together with big groups, because sometimes it’s really not pleasant waiting for other members and listen to boring guides regarding dates, facts, and specifications about a certain sight.
We just wanted to enjoy at maximum by traveling many kilometers and see the real wild Lappland, not only from the view of different guides. And because of this we didn’t want to reserve the popular tour to Kiruna mine offered by local tourist office.

Instead, we were happy having the chance to go inside the mine with Sven Ivan, probably the only one who knows everything about every corner in Kiruna mine and who also owns a shii-take mushrooms farm inside the mine.

Watch the video for interesting real stories about the Kiruna mine

Sven, used to work inside the mine for more than 40 years, but now he is dedicated to his hobby – shii-take mushrooms. He has his own farm inside the mine, which has been adapted to accommodate cultivation of shii-take mushrooms. This delicacy has been grown in China and Japan since ancient times and may now be enjoyed at the finer eateries of Europe. He is also the supplier of shii-take mushrooms for the Nobel dinner. The mine environment suits shii-take perfectly, giving the exclusive mushroom an extra delicate flavour and texture.
Sven showed the know-how of cultivating this type of mushroom in a mine and also taught us how to cut the mushroom 🙂 (see the video):

Also thanks to Sven we had the opportunity to visit the local church in Kiruna. This is a beautiful building and has won prizes for being Sweden’s most beautiful building. The church is built like a Crib of the traditional Sami culture.
The church was completed in 1912 and donated by the LKAB Mining company to the people of Kiruna. In 2001, the church was voted Sweden’s most beautiful building.

IceHotel

After visiting the mine, we took our Speed machine and drove to the Icehotel. The Icehotel lies on the banks of the Torne River, 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, in the small village of Jukkasjärvi.

The Icehotel is really impressive. Some (in my opinion) really interesting facts: when they began building the first icehotel 18 years ago, it had about the size of 60 m2 and today it is 60 000 m2. It’s made of a combination of ice and snow, which they call snice. The reason why it is built (with a round ceiling) is because that way, when it melts, the ceiling doesn’t break down but melts steadily. First it will get a hole in the ceiling where the sun can shine in, and then it will slowly meld down on the sides.

They start building the Icehotel every year between October and November (whenever it’s getting cold), and it starts melting around April. The ice for the sculptures is actually the ice of the lake where the Icehotel is located, but it’s the ice of the last year, because around February, the ice of the lake/river is the thickest (about 1 meter) and they just take it of and store it for the next year.

The suites are really impressive. Every room is designed by an individual artist. Everyone can apply for it with a design idea and a jury decides who is allowed to do it.

The suites are bigger and of course more impressive, but still only have a bed and maybe two chairs and a table, but also just a curtain. I have to admit, that I wouldn’t want to sleep there, but it was really nice to look at.

Another interesting fact: There are Icebars all over the world, and the ice for the glasses and for everything else is all being shipped from Kiruna to everywhere in the world. Even Japan. This is maybe because the ice is freezing just the right way.
The river isn’t flowing to slow, so there are no annoying bubbles in the ice, and it isn’t flowing too fast, so it actually freezes. Maybe because of that reason, the ice is shipped everywhere. It’s really nice and seethrough.

Jukkasjärvi and meeting the real reindeers

Beside the Icehotel, in Jukkasjärvi we visited the local church, which is the oldest wooden Sami church in the world.

After leaving the church we saw 2 Sami people, who were making some photos with a reindeer for people who booked in advance this activity.

The reservation for visiting a reindeer farm it’s quite expansive, about 30-40EUR/pers. But Sami people are really kind, they agreed to make an exception and allowed us visiting their farm without any reservation and free of charge (of course we gave him some interesting green papers 😎 ).
The interesting fact is that only Sami people are allowed to have reindeers, because only they know how to treat these creatures.

2 reindeers 😆

I thought that in Lappland you can see reindeers everywhere, crossing the road whenever they want and so on, but it wasn’t around Kiruna. However just few kilometers far from Kiruna we were invaded by about 100 to 200 reindeers and they were really huge.

Northern lights (Aurora Borealis)

The first day we arrived I went out at around 1PM with hope to see the northern lights, unfortunately it was snowing quite intensively and it was impossible to see the sky. However on the next day on our way from Norway to Sweden, the sky was really clear, which is the main condition to see the so-called Aurora Borealis.

After driving more 100km during the night, we still were not able to see any lights. We were expecting the lights should be in front of our way or behind. I decided to stop the car to rest a little and you can imagine what was above us 😯 :

The lights were really impressive, and I could have stayed to watch them for hours and days. It wasn’t too cold on our way to Kiruna, but I still got kind of cold after few seconds of taking pictures. Now I’m happy that all the members of the group are happy and we saw everything we wanted or maybe twice more 😉

Many picture are available HERE

P.S. One of my friends 😉

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Check HERE for more photos from our quick ride to Norway and the astonishing view with:
– Lapporten – the Lappish gate
– Norwegian fjords
– Atlantic Ocean

If you enjoyed the above boring reading and amateur photos, make sure you check my 2013 trip to Norway.