LXRY! HOTELS IN
FINLAND
One of the most remarkable features of Finland is light. When the endless sunshine of summer gives way to dark winter, the Northern Lights appear like magic and lighten up the sky.
The further north you go, the greater the chances of spotting the Aurora Borealis – in Finnish Lapland they can appear on 200 nights a year. In Helsinki and the south, the Aurorae can be seen on roughly 20 nights a winter, away from city lights.
The white summer nights are perhaps Finland’s most iconic natural phenomena. The nighttime sun is at its strongest during the months of June and July but the further north you go, the longer and higher the sun stays above the horizon. In the very northernmost parts, you can experience a full Midnight Sun from May to August.
our LXRY! hotel selection
We have some criteria before we can call a hotel a LXRY! Selection Hotel. We want to be surprised, we need luxury and hospitality at a high level, we love the quality of food and the rooms, we think the location is super important, and….we want to memorize the hotel for a lifetime! So you will not find basic chain hotels that look similar in all countries but truly found local gems that are different and memorable.
A once-in-a-lifetime experience, the website insists. A surreal experience like no other, claim dozens of ‘Places to see before you die’ lists. Intrigued, we walk through the snow-laden gates of Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, set amidst frosty Arctic Forests. We stare at the beams of sunlight filtering through slanting Arctic trees and entire fields covered with glistening snow.
This hotel, hidden deep within the Arctic Wilderness, is almost at the Northernmost tip of mainland Europe. The landscape is peppered with reindeer farms, picturesque trees, igloos, and skiing slopes. Dumbfounded by the landscape, we walk into Narnia…..
Our igloo is the first one in a queue of rotund ‘hotel rooms’. This is no regular hotel room – it’s a heated igloo with a transparent ceiling. It boasts of beds that can be converted to reclining cinema-style loungers to facilitate the viewing of the greatest show on earth – the mysterious Northern Lights.
I’m in raptures – sprinkling snow, chasing sun beams, and dreaming of mythical woodland creatures – even before we’ve opened our room and deposited our luggage.Once we’re well and truly out of breath, we stroll to the dining room at Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, flushed cheeks and all. As we devour the three-course dinner at Aurora, the world’s largest log cabin restaurant, we marvel at the effort that goes into putting together elaborate meals at a place as remote as Kakslauttanen.
Once we’ve officially checked in, there is no stopping us. The landscape might be laden with snow but we’re melting – we can’t quite believe the world is home to places such as this! The entire day is spent tobogganing down ice-slides, taking long walks in the snow, and pelting each other with snow balls (no shortage of those here!).
Nights are spent looking out for the elusive Northern Lights, with no luck. Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort boasts of over 200 days of Northern Lights in a year.
It’s a totally special experience!