Fascinating ice creams: seven frozen landscapes where the cold becomes art

BarcelonaLet's be honest. Most of us, when the temperature drops below five degrees Celsius, don't feel like leaving the house, and if we do, we turn into a kind of human onion wrapped in thermal layers, polar fleece, and wool, with red noses. But what if we told you that, while we're glued to the heating, the world outside is transforming into an ephemeral art gallery?

We're not talking about the snow that gets dirty on the city's roadsides. We're talking about phenomena that seem to come from an unreal world: bubbles rising from the bottom of a Siberian lake and stopping, or caves in Iceland where the blue is so intense it makes us wonder if we're wearing filters. It's the beauty of the ephemeral, of that which knows its days are numbered before spring returns everything to its liquid state.

Today we invite you to leave your house and take a journey through the most fragile and wild architectures on the planet. Get your gloves ready and put on your scarf so we can go in search of the aesthetics of the impossible: where ice not only petrifies landscapes but leaves us, quite literally, frozen with fascination.

If you want to know what it feels like to walk on the edge of an abyss without falling, Lake Baikal is the place for you. In winter, the deepest lake in the world becomes a crystal mirror so pure that its transparency is dizzying. Beneath your boots, a palette of electric blues unfolds that you never knew existed, and you see those hypnotic bubbles, frozen halfway up the surface as if someone had pressed the "pause" button mid-ascent. It's a living ice desert, where the cold sculpts crystal pyramids that capture the light of the setting sun, and the caves fill with crystal spikes. And in the midst of this icy silence, you might be lucky enough to see a nerpa, the local seal, peering out from a crevice. An almost surreal scene that reminds you that nature, when it wants to be, is the most radical artist on the planet.

If Iceland were a kingdom, Vatnajökull National Park would be its crown. Imagine a mass of ice so immense it could cover the entire area of ​​Barcelona twice over. This isn't just any glacier; it's a white giant that, from time to time, allows itself to be perforated, creating blue crystal caves that seem to have been created with AI. Stepping inside is like stepping into a permanent Instagram filter, where the blue is so insultingly intense you'll wonder if your eyes are deceiving you. But the aesthetic delirium doesn't end underground. At Diamond Beach, icebergs that break off from the lagoon float to the shore and become stuck in the black volcanic sand, sparkling like giant diamonds under the Arctic sun.

There's something profoundly hypnotic about watching a waterfall that doesn't fall. Now imagine this happening at many of the 90 waterfalls in Plitvice. When the temperature drops, many of its famous cascades petrify, transforming into giant stalactites that defy gravity. The water, which normally bursts forth with fury, here transforms into crystal sculptures, creating a living, white architecture that seems straight out of a Nordic fairy tale. Walking along the snow-covered wooden walkways is like stepping into an intimate, almost mystical realm. Here, luxury isn't opulence, but the absolute peace of a landscape that shifts before your eyes as the ice seeks new paths to seep through. It's nature at its purest: no queues, no noise, and a palette of bruises and greens that shimmer beneath a layer of pristine frost.

If the San Jose lighthouse on Lake Michigan were a person, we'd tell it that it has an ego problem in winter.It's not enough for it to be a 19th-century historical icon; it also aspires to be a work of art. And it succeeds. When the west wind blows fiercely, the lake water splashes against the structure, transforming it into a glass shell that appears sculpted by an artist with delusions of grandeur. It's what we might call extreme architectureThe stairs disappear beneath icy balls, and the lighthouse lantern is trapped in a pale blue, whale-like shape. A picture-postcard scene that leaves you speechless and with frozen fingers, but with the certainty that the world, under a thick layer of ice, is a far more spectacular place.

If we tell you that in Japan there is an army of monsters guarding the Yamagata mountains, you might think of a anime by Hayao Miyazaki. But the Juhyo are very real and have an explanation that is as scientific as it is poetic: the icy winds from Siberia cross the Sea of ​​Japan, becoming laden with moisture, and when they collide with the fir trees of Mount Zao, the water freezes instantly. Layer upon layer of ice and snow, the tree disappears and the Juhyo is born. monsterA hunchbacked, white, and colossal figure that seems to have come from another planet. Until spring, this frozen forest transforms into a science fiction setting. The best way to experience it is by taking the cable car to appreciate its sheer scale from the air, or by daring to ski among these silent sculptures. But the true magic unfolds at nightfall: the festival illuminates the monsters with vibrant colors, while fireworks and torchlight descents shatter the pristine white of the night. It is winter at its wildest and, at the same time, most captivating.

Another Asian festival you can't miss in winter is the Harbin Snow Festival. It's a place where the cold becomes a building material. Here, when the thermometer drops to thirty degrees below zero (yes, the kind that freezes even your thoughts), the city decides it's time to build an ephemeral empire. What began in the 1960s as simple ice lanterns lit by candles is now the largest snow festival on the planet: a veritable city built with blocks of ice extracted from the Songhua River. Walking through it is literally like walking inside a city-sized freezer. Gigantic Russian-style castles, pagodas, and monumental sculptures are illuminated at night by thousands of LED lights, creating an almost psychedelic landscape. It's an extreme physical experience where the beauty is as brutal as the temperature.

There are mornings when some beaches on the Gulf of Finland awaken covered in an army of giant pearls that look as if polished by a jeweler. But they are not jewels or eggs of an unknown marine species, but rather ice pebbles. This phenomenon is not unusual, but it is extremely capricious: it requires a gently sloping sandy beach, just the right water temperature, and a soft but constant breeze. It all begins with a small nucleus—a stone or a piece of seaweed—that accumulates layers of ice as the gentle waves roll it back and forth across the sand, polishing it like a pebble until it creates an almost perfect sphere. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, this is an architectural phenomenon that usually appears only once a year. Although the most famous images come from Northern Europe, these icy balls have also been seen on the shores of Lake Michigan in the United States, and in the remote Gulf of Ob in Russian Siberia. Yet another example of how nature, when bored, plays a game of cat and mouse with the landscape.