Although the thermometers showed a nighttime temperature of -25 degrees Celsius at Balea Lake in Romania, where the famous Hotel of Ice is located, the tourists still want to try the special hotel located at an altitude of over 2,000 meters.

English tourists have already booked eight of the Ice Hotel’s rooms for the night from Monday to Tuesday, according to Lidia Badila, spokesperson of the company that manages the Ice Hotel, reports local Mediafax.

“We have taken additional measures for them because it really is very cold. Thus, we have kept some warm rooms in cottages for them to use if they are too cold. We’ll also give them extra thick blankets and hot tea,” she said.

However, the tourists who want to get to the Hotel of Ice might have to pass over some obstacles. One of them might be the cable car that wasn’t working on Monday morning due to the freezing temperatures. However, as the cable car is the only way the tourists can get up there, the hotel management hoped that the problem would be solved in the afternoon.

The -25 degrees Celsius registered at Balea Lake on the night from Sunday to Monday represented the lowest temperature recorded there since 1961, according to meteorologists Ilie Mojic from the Transilvania Sud Sibiu Meteorological Centre.

The temperatures will remain low in the coming days, more than two-thirds of Romania being under an orange alert of extreme cold.

The Hotel of Ice is located at an altitude of 2,034m in the Fagaras Mountains, being built from huge blocks of ice cut from Balea Lake. Every year, the hotel attracts a large number of tourists, most of them foreigners.

Rooms available at Romania’s Ice Hotel only after January 3

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com