Dec. 13 issue - Outdoors: The Season For Skating By Ginanne Brownell and Tracy Mcnicoll It's the most wonderful time of the year—at least for those who love to ice skate. Though outdoor rinks have always been popular, recently a spate of new rinks has popped up in snowy cities across the globe.
"If you put a high-quality rink in a superb setting, it adds a certain magic, and that is why you have people flooding to these rinks around the holiday season," says Paul Savident, who handles PR for two new British rinks—at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. At Kew (kewgardensicerink.com), skaters can glide across the lawn in front of Temperate House, the world's largest existing Victorian glass structure. And in Greenwich, they can skate on a newly opened rink in the shadow of the dramatic twinned towers (greenwichicerink.com).
Gustave Eiffel must be triple-lutzing in his grave. The audacious French engineer surely never imagined nestling an ice rink in the 324-meter-tall steel tower he built for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. For the first time ever, this Friday lucky skaters will glide across a 200-square-meter rink atop the tower's first level, with a view across all of Paris. At night, with the tower sparkling every hour on the hour, the ice will also glow; low-heat LED colored lights have been embedded in the surface.
Those looking for spectacular rinks closer to the ground are in luck, too. For the first time, Madrid's 100-hectare, Central Park-like Parque del Buen Retiro will have its own large outdoor rink from Dec. 17 through Jan. 9. Madrilenos will glide over 1,200 square meters on the park's Paseo de Coches, under Christmas lights and to live music.
These new rinks join many old favorites across Europe in cities where ice skating is long established. This week the Belgian diamond capital, Antwerp, will open its historic ice rink at Grote Markt near the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady. Brussels's Fish Market is home to two rinks (with one set aside for kids), bathed in the glow of a 48-meter-tall Ferris wheel lit by 18,000 bulbs. Geneva's Christmas rink, downtown on the Place du Rhone, devotes Friday and Saturday nights to disco and '80s music. With more than 2,000 lakes, Poland offers plenty of natural skating spots. But many Warsaw residents prefer the popular ice rink next to the Palace of Culture and Science, which has been open for the past several seasons. The 1,000-square-meter oval-shaped venue is not only centrally lo- cated but also open all day free of charge.
And if looping around rinks doesn't inspire, tearing down a —canal on skates just might. The Dutch prefer marathon skating to rink rounding; Amsterdam's canals provide breathtaking city scenery for skaters, but they depend entirely on the weather and can go years without ice. For consistency on the canals, look to cold Canada. Ottawa's Rideau Canal claims to be the world's longest skating rink, offering 7.8 kilometers of uninterrupted gliding through the heart of Canada's capital city and past its majestic Parliament. So bundle up! With Jenny Barchfield in Paris
Travel: Vacation Down Under Tired of winter already? Schedule a trip to Sydney, where it's summer in December.
Eat fresh lobster, chilled crab and western Australian marrons at Wildfire's Sea Bar, which has them flown in from private creels (from $60 a head; 61-2-8273-1222).
Stay at the Park Hyatt, located in a prime spot across from the Opera House (from $350; parkhyatt.com).
Shop beneath the glassy domes of the Queen Victoria Building, with three levels of Old World boutiques.
Bask in the sun at Manly Beach across the harbor. Catch a boat at Circular Quay, which chugs between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House ($9).
Sip cocktails at the Establishment, an elegant space on George Street that attracts a fun but pin-striped crowd. (011-61-2-9240-3000).
Visit the Museum of Sydney, which charts life in the city before the first white settlers arrived in 1788 ($5). —Michelle Jana Chan
Trends: Tango Steps Out
Argentina's saucy national dance has won fans the world over. But back home, the two-by-four step is evolving in several different directions:
When tango was born in the 1800s, only men danced it. Now it is getting back to its same-sex roots; Buenos Aires offers a number of new milongas, or dance salons, geared to gays and lesbians. On Tuesdays, Besos Brujos gives tango lessons to a young, hip crowd (besosbrujos.com). La Marshall draws mostly men between 20 and 60, who can dance the night away for $2 (lamarshallmilonga @yahoo.com.ar).
To attract younger dancers, Some clubs are mixing traditional tango rhythms with techno sounds. Feel the beats meld at Confiteria Ideal (sitiosargentina.com.ar), La Flor de Boedo (abctango.com) or La Catedral (para kultural.com.ar).
To tango alfresco, head to the Barrancas de Belgrano park on weekends, where dancers bring portable tape recorders; at La Glorieta de Belgrano, loudspeakers begin blasting tango songs at 5 p.m. —Marina Artusa
Internet: What's In A Name? On the World Wide Web, domain names ending in ".com" are out. In the past year, registration for France (".fr"), Sweden (".se") and China (".cn") has well outpaced ".com." Small-business owners are already gearing up for next year's sale of ".eu." For help in getting your site up and running, consider using a Web-design firm like London-based Large Design (largedesign.com; from 15,000 pounds), known for its award-winning esthetics, or Singapore's ThinkingCouch Interactive (thinking couch.com;from 2,520 pounds). While do-it-yourself software takes longer, it costs considerably less: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 (macromedia.com; 339 pounds) uses a database to convert content into the local language. —Sana Butler
