Ice Hotels

Iglu-Dorf builds a village of snow domes below the Stockhorn summit in the Bernese Oberland each winter, and dismantles it — or rather lets it dismantle itself — each spring. The site is reached by cable car, and the last stretch is on foot across snow, which sets the tone for everything that follows.

Sleeping rooms are carved domes, some plain and some sculpted by artists invited for the season. Guests sleep in expedition-grade bags on insulated mats over ice platforms, at an interior temperature that holds a little below freezing regardless of the weather outside. A whirlpool sits outdoors in the snow, and dinner is fondue, because at that altitude nothing else makes sense.