Wednesday 8 February 2012

Ice-skating in the Netherlands, season 2012/ Schaatsen op natuurijs in Nederland

When the negative temperatures stay long enough for the canals to freeze, the Dutch (and all other ice-skating lovers) start counting the days and the ice depth! This year we were lucky to have the cold and minus 16 to minus 7 (around the Hague, more in the rest of the country) over night for almost a week now and the natural ice skating rings got ready!
 
For the ones who don't know me: I am the one on the right below...


















Ice-skating on frozen canals is something like national sport here. The people first clean the canals from the snow and then everyone gets on: with skates, shoes, sleights or something else! l do love it too, so today I enjoyed a sunny day ice-skating with some local colleagues!
One may skate on frozen canals or lakes or go to some official "ijsbanen" such as the frozen lake in Schipluiden, see last 2 pictures from sunny skating in club "Vlietland" before/by sunset there last Saturday!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Hoi Jana
Ja..Leuk..!!
Schaatsen in Nederland. Met prachtige foto's. Hebben jullie zelf ook even op de schaats gestaan?
Ik hoorde net dat de elf steden tocht nog niet door kan gaan ..het Ijs is op sommige plekken nog te zwak.
Jammer..Want dat is echt de top!
Groetjes Henk

betchai said...

so glad for you Jana, glad to see you and your colleagues having so much fun ice skating.

FilipBlog said...

Great pictures Jana, it must have been a lot of fun. The guy in front of you looks almost like a professional and his face looked familiar. It was only when I saw Yvette that I recognised Jan.

Greetings,
Filip

AVCr8teur said...

Looks like fun and I bet all the locals are expert skaters.

Filipina Ini said...

indeerdaad leuk!

Murasaki Shikibu said...

Ice skating surely a better way to stay slim and fit than baking a chocolate cake. Great photos!

Jana said...

thank U dear all!
@Henk: yep, its me on skates, look for the pink hat:-)
@Filip: indeed we were all well disguised;
@Murasaki: you are so right:-) after the winter sport I am actually mosthly only thursty, not hungry;