The ice rink at the Christianshavn end of the inner city bridge has just been set up and opened for the coming winter season.

It is incredibly popular. Older kids seem to head here immediately after school but it’s equally popular with families. Everyone arrives on foot or by bike because there is no public transport to this particular part of the inner city …. even the harbour ferry stops on the other side and you have to walk round and cross the bridge.

Several of the food stalls that are here during the summer reopen …. this is the area for street food that opened after the food hall on Papiroen - immediately North of here but over on the other side of the canal - was cleared for the island to be cleared and developed with the construction of large and expensive apartment buildings.

This is an odd space and, when I say space, I mean space because this is not a formal urban square but is and still feels like a bit of land left over after the bridge was built. It has a large warehouse across the south side that throws the area into shade for much of the day; the inner harbour is to the west - with the pedestrian and cycle bridge over the harbour to Ny Havn - and the Christianshavn canal forms the north side of the area and, because it turns through 90 degrees, also the east side. The part of the space immediately behind the warehouse was once a dock basin where goods were unloaded and the north part variously wharves and boat yards.

When the development on Papirøen is finished, the Summer street food stalls are set to move back although I suspect it will not be able to recapture the atmosphere of the present food market here or the earlier food market when it was in the redundant warehouse on Papirøen before they were demolished. I don’t see how there will be space for the ice rink over there. I hope I’m wrong because it would be a loss.

The current rink on the current site has a very real vitality and, in part, that is because here, right now, making a noise actually does not matter. For now, there is no one living near here to be worried or to complain.

After the summer food stalls and the winter ice rink at the end of the bridge go then there are plans for more luxury apartment buildings on this site …. what a surprise.