Narnia, Québec

The Hotel de glace is an ice hotel. A hotel of sculptured ice. The solid 4 foot thick walls keep the inside at a cosy - 5C, a welcome respite from today's - 36C and the perfect room temperature for a crisp shot of vodka in an ice glass at the Absolut ice bar.

It's a five star igloo.

The hotel is an extravagant fantasy, with sculptured furnishings to indulge the imagination and play on the romance of mythical ice kingdoms. I have visons of Narnia. The bed frames are intricately carved, lit from within and layered with deer pelts. A huge ice chandelier hangs in the foyer.

The sculptures, by their very transient nature, have an ageless type of beauty, like a sunset or a rainbow. So too, the hotel has a tangible sense of immediacy - all this will be gone by Spring. I imagine the ambience intoxicating the guests.

Absolut, in fact, must be laughing.

* * * * *

I'm having trouble feeling my extremities and am thinking of red wine in fish bowl glasses and an open fire. Juls may have grown up in Australia but I suspect her Hungarian heritage blood has a northern hemisphere advantage. She loans me a bikini and takes me to a nordic spa instead.

At the Silberia Spa, we cook up our bodies in a dry sauna then take a plunge in the ice pool. Yes. An ice pool. It's said to invigorate blood and circulation. It invigorated most of my vital organs.

It's -20C, I'm in a bikini, my hair and eyelashes are frozen and I'm making snow angels in the woods. This was why I came to Canada in winter! Star gazing in the outdoor jacuzzi, I have fallen in love with snow.

"Madness" indeed...

Obscure Tangents

Siberia Station Spa