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Places to go skating this winter
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Frost, chill, dusk, cold and the heating bill. These are some of the reasons why many people mourn for the summer at the end of August and get depressed in autumn, although this this doesn’t last for a long time. Once you smell the gingery, orangey smell of mulled wine, see the sparkling winter lights and go ice-skating you feel the magic which can only be experienced during the coldest days of winter.
Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu collected the best places to go skating in Budapest this winter.
The spreading of ice-skating in Hungary wasn’t that easy. In the 1860s, high society didn’t think that it was a sport for women and neither did doctors suggest it. Later, Géza Kresz stopped caring about resistance and established the Ice-Skating Club of Pest. This is when the story of skating in the City Park started.
In the beginning, the circumstances were a bit harsh considering that there wasn’t a place for the parents to warm up while their daughters were skating. This is why the first calefactory was built by Kresz’s team. The pavilion was built after this with a saloon for the grade-dames watching the ethics of young ladies.
With this, the ball season lasted for 4-5 months instead of 2 months which doubled the chances of ladies looking for husbands. This is how ice-skating became more and more popular in the Hungarian capital.
Let’s see the ice-rinks Budapest offers:
City Park Ice Rink:
You must start with the master, the classic, the queen of winter feeling – the City Park Ice Rink. This year it opened on the 25th of November and you will find it sill has its historic glory up to this day. You don’t have to be a professional to visit the rink, because it is all about having fun, plus you can take skating lessons from qualified coaches. Also, it is still a perfect location to pick up with somebody or go on a date.
If you want to impress someone, just tell them how the place used to be a swampy area about 200 years ago. This is where Béla IV had an assembly, King Mathias went hunting and György Dózsa had his quarters. Or just simply invite the person you want to impress for a mug of mulled wine!