Lititz Fire and Ice Festival
I live within driving distance of tons of historical places, great events, and festivals. I wrote about beautiful Longwood Gardens previously. Now I am going to tell you about the Lititz Fire and Ice Festival held each year in the town of Lititz, Pennsylvania. It is held in the middle of February around Valentine’s Day, so these pictures are from last year (2019).
The tricky thing about ice sculptures is that the weather has to be cold enough. With warm temperatures in February, the sculptures begin to melt sooner rather than later. We were delighted to find lots of sculptures that had not melted when we arrived on the last day of the festival.
I think this gavel hammer was the first one we found. The sculptures are placed in front of various businesses around town. They are sponsored by the businesses. It started out as a cold day, and I was glad I had brought mittens and things for the kids. But as we walked around they got warmer, and you will see that the kids will discard their warm outerwear.
I have not seen the Fire part of the festival. There are several different pyrotechnic shows. You can read all about the details on their website. If I get to go this year (2020), I will be sure to update this post! The other aspect of the “fire” is a Chili Cook-off. There is a fee to eat the chili, but there are other food trucks and vendors available, also.
There is an indoor area with bounce houses that cost a little money if you choose to do that. There is a town park and playground where my kids played for a long time. Other than a requested $1 donation for the pyrotechnics, the rest of the the Ice Festival is free! And if you hadn’t heard— I LOVE Free!
Here is a cement truck, sponsored by the local cement company Rohrer’s Concrete.
The kids and I enjoyed discovering all of these different shapes made out of ice. Here is a mouth sponsored by the local orthodontist, LOA.
Here is a piece of cheese with some mice on top. The holes in the cheese were perfect for taking pictures!
Here you can see the kids have gotten warmer and have shed their coats, hats, and gloves. We were amazed by how tall this sculpture was. You can see the Aveeno bottle on the right was really melted from having been in the sun.
Is this a unicorn? Or a sea monster? Or a unicorn sea monster? The ice was in great condition from being in the shade of a tree. This sculpture is sponsored by the local insurance company.
Here was a little scuba diver.
There were more sculptures than I took pictures of. But these were our favorites. My daughter really liked the horse and horseshoe on the right.
I saved the best for last. What do you think of this giant heart throne?! A heart throne is the perfect thing for an ice festival on Valentine’s Day.
There was a rubber welcome mat on the throne (you can see it on the ground to the right). We took it off for the pictures, I think because it was sliding off as the kids were trying to climb up on the throne. But the throne was cold to sit on!! The welcome mat was probably to make sitting on the ice bearable!
Can you tell how cold it was by his face??
This side view shows the sunlight shining through the ice. It was very beautiful to look at.
Have you ever been to see Ice Sculptures anywhere? Or have you ever tried ice carving?
I hope that you have enjoyed this tour of the ice part of the Lititz Fire and Ice Festival in Pennsylvania.
