The 8th edition of the ice sculpture festival in the Netherlands attracts about 150,000 people in two months. Tourists and locals come to see the sculptures that were made by special ice artists.

LIFESTYLES takes you there...

Even though the name would suggest otherwise, the ice sculpture festival in Zwolle does not only show sculptures carved out of the ice. This ice bear for example was made from snow.

And the theme of this year's edition?

A nautical journey through the bottom of the ocean!

SOUNDBITE: HUIB, ORGANIZER
"The theme is nautical stories. We Dutch do a lot of things on the oceans. So we have a lot of stories, not only about Dutch sea heroes, but also about a lot of sea heroes all over the world. On the other hand we see a lot of sea animals, dolphins, everything that you can imagine in the sea is here."

A part from this slide, completely carved out of a massive block of ice. But the children don't mind, in their imagination a slide on the bottom of the ocean makes perfectly sense.

That also counts for this wreck that reminds the visitor of the once sunk Titanic. And any other sea animals that you would meet at the bottom of the ocean is here, including sharks, sea monsters, skeletons of dead animals and mermaids.

A team of around 40 professional snow and ice artists from all over the world came here to carve the sculptures in only two weeks'time.

And in order to keep their precious babies in shape, temperature in the exhibition hall needs to be constantly kept at minus 8. At least these children are well prepared!

SOUNDBITE: HUIB, ORGANIZER
"People love it. They stand around half an hour in line to wait before they can get in. When they get out the only thing they say is that it's cold of course, but for the rest they love it, they really really love it."