Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
A world-famous hotel made out of ice which customers had already booked will not be built this year as a warm December means there is not enough ice to construct it for the first time in 16 years.
The internationally famous Balea Lake Ice Hotel has been built on the shores of Balea Lake in Romania’s Sibiu County for the past 16 years but its owners say they will not be able to construct it this year.
Local media report the hotel, which is normally constructed at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,561 feet) will not be built because there is not enough ice in the lake.
A representative from the hotel named Alexander Uncheshel said: “This year we won’t be able to build the ice hotel because of the lack of ice. On Tuesday 7th January, temperatures of minus 17 degrees Celsius were registered and the thickness of the snow was 166 cm (5.44 feet) so it seems that even if we built the ice hotel it still wouldn’t be as cost-effective as the last couple of years.
“Last year it was inaugurated prior to Christmas and we had it running all the way until the Easter holidays.”
Local media report in order to build the hotel workers need to cut large blocks of ice from the Balea lake with chainsaws but due to the fact that December was warm, the lake did not freeze over quickly enough for the hotel’s raw material to exist.
Uncheshel said: “Lots of tourists from many countries all over the world had previously booked apartments in the hotel but I think they’ll have to wait until next winter when we hope to be able to build the ice hotel together with the ice church and igloos we had in previous years.”
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