Asleep beneath the Northern Lights

[Image: Photo by Doug McKinlay, courtesy of The Observer].

"Deep in the Arctic Circle," we read, there is "a remarkable hotel made up of fishing huts on a frozen lake." Of course, you don't check in for the modern amenities: after all, the hotel is more like "a cross between camping and pottering in a garden shed," Doug McKinlay writes.

Instead, you check in to watch the Northern Lights.

[Images: By Doug McKinlay, courtesy of The Observer].

Called the Abisko Ark Hotel, it's located 250km north of the Arctic Circle, on Sweden's Lake Tornetrask. "Guests are expected to bring essentials such as thermal underwear, fleeces and woolly hats, but the hotel provides thick outerwear and heavy snowmobile boots."

Each hut "is about six meters square and sleeps three comfortably on single beds. The best part is that by each bed is a resealable hole in the wooden floor, allowing guests to fish from the comfort of their down-filled sleeping bags."