Entering the Icehotel from -30° into -5° it feels very warm the first moment. However, it is all just a question of the proper clothing.
This is how the bed looks like.
We had late dinner and went to bed around 22:00. You just wear the underwear and get your sleeping bag in the warm section and then you walk to your room get into the sleeping bag. Best thing is to zip it up until you have just a small hole to breath. It isn't a good idea to breath into the sleeping bag since it gets moist after a while. I slept well, but had to go to the toilet once. Then slept until close to 08:00 when wake up service came and looked for survivors with some warm juice. We headed for the sauna and then for a nice breakfast.
Activity was a husky tour through winter wonderland. Gliding silently through the white landscape with some motivated dogs is really fun and we even saw a moose.
The next evening there was a band
http://www.johnashtrips.com playing in the ice bar at -10° Celsius because the Icehotel celebrated 25 years anniversary.
It was lots of fun with drinks in glasses made of pure ice.
However, sleeping in a warm room was also not so bad.
Next morning we checked out and headed to the airport. Weather was great, no clouds and temperatures around -10°.
The first leg was planned to ESMQ, Kalmar in Southern Sweden. We climbed to FL120 in order to avoid breathing oxygen. We checked again weather on our ADL120 after departure and quickly discovered that we would have a very favourable wind at FL200. (We checked weather before departure as well, but didn't look at winds in higher altitudes).
So we hooked up the oxygen and climbed to FL180 which really gave us a great tail wind.
This way we did the 682NM in 3:33 which was an average groundspeed of nearly 195 knots. Descending to Kalmar we did our best but wind really deteriorated quickly and the maximum groundspeed we had was 266 knots, which isn't bad anyways.
The last leg from Kalmar to Linz was 543 NM at 2:59 which was again an average GS of 180 knots. This day we did 1225 NM in 6:32 hours. We were glad that we didn't have to go the opposite way.
The trip was great, the aircraft performed as expected, and the ADL120 did a great job. Only we didn't see the Aurora Borealis, so we have to go again another time.
