Vienna gets it skates on

It’s six o’clock on a cold Friday afternoon in the centre of Vienna. Just as well it’s cold, otherwise the ice might melt!

In the parkland in front of one of the city’s finest buildings- the incredibly ornate town hall which in the locals call the Rathaus, hundreds of people have embraced the cold, donned the skates and taken to the ice.

From mid January until mid March the park becomes a public skate rink which sparkles under the dark Viennese sky.

The white canvass of the ice is painted with a scene of skaters dressed in brightly coloured parkas and beanies. Mums and dads hold the hands of tiny first timers the size of garden gnomes. They tentatively inch their way around the ice as if they were taking their first steps. Some probably are they look so young.

An older couple, somewhere in their late sixties, glide gracefully across the white surface as if they?ve been doing it all their lives. Their gloved hands are held and their cashmere coats billow slightly as they circle the ice. They smile generously at me as they pass. They?re the Fred and Ginger of the night.

Another couple, much younger and more interested in being seen provide a spectacular show of skating prowess. They?re not quite the Torvill and Dean of Austria but their choreography is none too shabby. They spin, twirl and glide backwards in a display one would pay to see at the Olympics.

There?s a young boy, probably about seven years old, who has the wettest bum from too many unceremonious slips and falls. He gets to his feet, falls, gets to his feet once more and falls again in the shallow bath of frigid water that coats the ice. Despite being the only living ?unco? boy on skates in Austria, he?s happy and laughs with every failed upright attempt. He already knows he?s not destined for a career in Ice Capades.

Groups of teenagers gather at various meeting points on the ice. The girls giggle and the boys show off. I stand there waiting for one of the young bucks to come a cropper and end up with his face in the sludge but he disappoints me. He just keeps circling; looking for girls he can impress with his speed and well rehearsed gymnastic antics.

It?s a beautiful winter scene. The glaring white of the floodlit ice is contrasted by the yellow glow of the Town Hall which stands as the backdrop to the picture in its bath of gentle illumination. The dominance of its structure against the night sky above and the skating activity below hangs like a curtain of Baroque architecture, reassuring me I?m still in Vienna.

Well, I?d hardly be in Melbourne in the middle of January, watching people dressed like Nordic cross country skiers scooting along a glistening white surface.

But this is no ordinary skating rink. There are two main squares, which are linked by a circuitous ribbon of ice wending its way through the park under the rows of bare Birch trees. Skaters are not confined to ?doing laps? around a rectangle of ice ? they can spread their wings, get some speed up and spin around the course as many times as they want, or as long as their legs will allow them.

I see one young gun, flying solo. His arms move from side to side as he bends at the waist, lowers his head and whooshes past the other skaters. He?s done this before, I can tell.

He finishes the cross country (or cross park) course in record time, almost collecting a couple of those little first-timers along the way, but he?s careful. He?s careful not to cause and accident and careful everyone can see him.

It really doesn?t matter if you?re a champion skater or a complete novice. No one really cares. (But no one?s told the teenagers that) For a shallow outlay of just a couple of Euros, anyone can enjoy the skate park – it?s for the people.

As the name on the gates of the neatly coiffed park opposite denotes ? Volksgarten, and the building down the road ? Volkstheater, the Rathaus Skate Park is definitely for the people. 

And they clearly love it.

An on location report from Austria and Central Europe for TravelMole by international travel writer Kevin Moloney