The NY Times had a couple of suggestions for getting cold this winter: Being Cold is the Hot Trend this Winter. The first suggestion was the ice bar newly installed at the Four Seasons in Paris (and not yet on their web site).

I've been to London's Absolut Ice Bar, which is actually kind of fun. It's been open a year now, and the gimmick is this: you pay an entrance fee and get a parka to wear and enter the small bar. You're supposedly allowed in for only 40 minutes or so, but the rules are lax. Anyway, the entire bar, tables, and portions of the walls are made of blocks of ice. It's dark but has colorfully lit surfaces, taking advantage of the transparency of the ice. You've got a choice of various drinks--all made with Absolut Vodka, of course--poured into squarish "glasses" which are also blocks of ice. And, yes, there's one in Stockholm, too. And that one's linked to the management of the igloo Ice Hotel in Sweden (see Erik's post about it here).

Another NYT suggestion was the CryoTherapy Center in Slovakia, where you're stripped down and get chilled from room temperature to below zero in one chamber, then enter a chamber that's chilled to -184 degrees F, colder than the lowest recorded temperature on earth. Then, if that's not torture enough, you head to the gym for a workout.

Filed under: Europe