London gets ready to skate

London has seen an explosion in outdoor ice rinks springing up at this time of year in the last few years. It used to be that Britain would look at somewhere like New York in the run up to Christmas and say doesn’t that look great with the snow and Rockefeller Center. We won’t get any snow but since Somerset House on the Thames near Waterloo Bridge put in a rink in 2000 lots of great locations throughout the city have copied them.

The first one to open up this year was at the Natural History Museum today. They’ve got a 1000sq metre rink in the sunken area on the right front side of the museum and the building makes a stunning backdrop. You can hire skates or bring your own and lessons are available, they even have a couple of sessions for wheelchair users. There’s a Christmas Fair and a bar and it’s now open from 10am-10pm weekdays, 9am-10pm weekends until the 21 January 2007, tickets cost £10.50 -£12 and it does look good down there.

Somerset House is the one that got the ball rolling, its a 18th century Georgian building with a huge courtyard piazza that’s perfect for putting a rink in. Somerset House is located between the Strand and the Embankment, right next to Waterloo Bridge. It’s the home of the Courtauld Institute of Art and is actually fairly easy to miss if you’re walking on the Strand, its the solid grey building with three high arch ways and columns on its second floor and it hides the big open area inside. There rink open’s up on the 22 November to the 28 January, prices are between £10-15 and its bascially 10am-10pm though there are some late 11.30pm sessions. If you’re around Covent Garden its very close and would be a good way of working up an appetite before dinner.

The Tower of London is using the moat around the outside of the Tower for their ice rink, probably not what William the Conqueror had in mind, and you can get 25% off the £10 ticket if you buy the joint skate and Tower of London ticket. They’re opening up on 25 November and only staying open to 14 January 2007, skating hours are 10am-10pm.

If you fancy showing the people from the heart of London’s financial world how its done on ice, get over to Canada Square Park in Canary Wharf from 18 November to 18 February and do your stuff beneath all those gleaming office towers. Tickets are £10 and no doubt those City high flyer’s will be out in their lunch breaks giving it some. 10am-10.30 Mon-Sat, 10am- 8.00pm Sun.

There’s one at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich right across from the National Maritime Museum from 2 December to the 14 January. Greenwich is a nice place to visit at anytime, lots to see and quite trendy and the Old Naval College is one of many grand buildings around there. Even though Greenwich is a little way out from central London its pretty easy to get to. The best way is to get a boat down the Thames but if you haven’t got the time for that take the Dockland’s Light Railway from Bank station, it goes through Canary Wharf and gives you a great view of all the new office towers down there. The session’s are 10am-10pm and the tickets are £9.50.

If this was 200 years ago Hampstead Heath could have six rinks every year but we don’t get cold weather like the old days and the swimming ponds on the Heath never freeze over to allow skating. The locals make do with the artificial one near the tennis courts in the southeast corner of the Heath. It’s there from 2 December-14 January and you never know if some of London’s richest people who live nearby will be out on the ice. 10am-10pm, tickets £9.50.

There are two rinks in famous locations in west London, both close to the Thames one on the north bank and one on the south. Kew Gardens opens up on 25 November until 7 January and you can get a joint ticket for the world famous botanic gardens and the ice skating for £14 or just the skating for £10, times 10am-10pm.

A little further west you can test out the ice at Henry VIII’s palace at Hampton Court which starts its sessions from 2 December to 14 January, 10am-10pm and tickets £9.50.

This weird looking building on the left is Cardinal Place in Victoria, just up the street from Victoria Station. It’s a shopping mall and they’re having an ice rink in their open space running from 12 December to 19 February.

Out of all of these places if I wanted an Christmas ice skating session in a unique place with a lot of atmosphere I’d head to the Natural History Museum or Somerset House, and both should look great at night.