The Ice Palace

The Ice Palace is a unique structure of communicating tunnels cut under the Alech Glacier, the longest glacier in Europe.

Despite the fact that the road has been in operation for almost 100 years, the idea of building a real palace of the Snow Queen, in which the walls, ceiling and floor would be made of ice, appeared only in 1934. It was at that time in the glacier Alech began to cut through the first tunnels, which in our days have become a real labyrinth.

Now the Ice Palace, located at a depth of 20 meters in the thickness of the glacier, has an area of 1 thousand meters and is a network of long galleries filled with ice sculptures. The walls, the ceiling, the floor – all except handrails are made of ice. The figures mainly play the winter theme: there are northern bears, penguins, seals, eagles, Eskimos and even rats from the “Ice Age” walled in a block of ice, in their legs firmly clutching an acorn. Also in the Ice Palace there are audiovisual shows and even an ice bar. Entrance to the palace is free, but only in warm clothes - even in hot summer, the temperature inside the ice tunnels does not rise above -2 ° C.

Right above the Ice Palace on a vast plateau there is an observation deck. This is another opportunity to look at the world from a bird's-eye view and take a photo, grabbing a pole of the Swiss flag.