London's coolest new bar

From the sauna to smoked herring, and from flat-packed furniture to football management, Sweden is famous for all manner of delights. But the newest export to come from Swedish Lapland, a place where it snows from October until May and where temperatures can reach - 40C, is pure, clear ice.

As you read this, a bar fashioned entirely of the stuff is on its way from Jukkasj?rvi, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, to the ice rink at London's Somerset House. Once in place, the two-tonne bar will form the glittering centre-piece for Tuesday's opening party, where guests will drink their martinis from chunky ice glasses.

In the few days before it began its epic overland journey, we travelled to northern Sweden to visit the place where the idea originated: the world-famous Ice Hotel.

As we came in to land over a black-and-white landscape, the pilot informed us that it was - 10C. While cold by British standards, to locals this was nothing.

"It's boring weather," complained the taxi driver on our way from the airport, where new arrivals are met by a giant stuffed bear perched above the baggage reclaim belts.

Pointing to markers by the side of the road, he said: "The snow usually reaches at least one metre by this time of year. It's very warm." The lack of feeling in my feet was already telling me otherwise.

After a half-hour drive through roads lined with gingerbread houses and roofs thick with icing sugar snow, we reached the hotel. Built each year from 50,000 tonnes of ice and snow, it lasts until May when the entire structure melts.

This year the architects and artists working on the hotel have had an extra job: the ice bar for London.

Ice sculptor Mark Armstrong, who is travelling here to put it together, said demand for such pieces has grown 25 per cent in three years. "It's something different. It's crazy stuff," said Mr Armstrong, 28, chiselling with a dangerous-looking sharp implement.

With a pure block of ice mined from the nearby River Torne fetching up to £500, the export of ice has proved lucrative.

Demand for it also fulfils a life-long ambition for Mr Armstrong, from Cheshire, who hit upon sculpting ice three years ago and now lives a short snowmobile ride from the hotel across the frozen River Torne.

"It's the quality of the material," he said. "It's the transparency and the depth. It's totally sensual."

The hotel increases in popularity every year. Although not yet built, it is already 70 per cent booked, with visitors from around the world apparently eager to sleep on an ice bed in one of its 100 rooms, where indoor temperatures rarely rise above - 5C.

"What do people stay here for? It's for the experience," said artistic director Arne Bergh. "It's the freshness. It's a special feeling. Coming into the building should be like walking into a fairytale."

When finished, the highlight is the impressive ice bar complete with ice chairs and an ice chandelier hanging from its domed roof. There is even a chapel where 130 couples have so far had a chilly introduction to married life.

This year there are 100 staff helping to construct the building, using snow blowers to jet the snow and ice - "snice" - onto giant steel girders. There are 25 artists, each working on a themed room decorated with intricate ice sculptures.

There is a rock'n'roll room, a Viking suite and even a graffiti room, on which two young painters from Stockholm are working.

Artist Tjasa Gusfors, 27, is designing a snowflake-themed room.

On one wall she uses a chainsaw to cut a giant snowflake from the eight-inch thick snow. When finished, the holes will be plugged with sculpted ice and lit from behind with lights alternating soft blue, green and pink.

"I'm taking inspiration from the Northern Lights," she said. "I love the way light plays with the ice and snow."

As well as providing an experience for foreign snowseekers, the hotel generates at least 150 jobs for local people, providing activities which include hurtling around a track on a reindeer sleigh with clumps of snow smacking you in the face.

"Life was hard before the hotel," said dog-sleigh guide Goran, pouring bitter coffee from a fire-blackened pot. We were sitting in the woods after a sleigh ride which was possibly the coldest half-hour of my life.

"There were no jobs. Now I take people dog sledding, ice fishing, survival training - anything they want to do."