Broens Skøjtebane 2022

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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.

 
 

Broens Skøjtebane
4 November 2022 - 26 February 2023
Sunday to Thursday 10.00 - 21.30
Friday and Saturday 10.00 - 22.30

update:

The ice rink is set to return on 6 November 2023 …..
so there is at least one more year

 

Beach Volleyball on the harbour quay

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This weekend - on Friday 13, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 August - there is a beach volleyball competition on the quay on the city side of the harbour. It’s at the corner of Nyhavn - where the inner harbour bridge crosses over to Christianshavn - and a temporary court and a stand have been set up specifically for the event.

This is yet another good example of how much the citizens of Copenhagen make use of public urban spaces for major events outside.

Broens Skøjtebane / Bridge Street Iceskating

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On top of everything else, Coronavirus seems to have distorted time. Autumn seems to have come and gone with barely a trace because the ice skating rink at the south end of the inner harbour bridge - Broens Skøjtebane - has just been set up on the square between the warehouses and the canal where, until recently, people were sitting out to eat at the food market.

The city is quieter than you would expect at this time of year and many of the traditional events have been cancelled or scaled back so there will be no skating this year outside the gates to the park at Frederiksberg; there will be no Christmas markets at Højbro Plads and Kongens Nytorv; and the launch of the Tuborg Julebryg - the special Christmas Ale - so an important evening on the calendar and always on the first Friday in November - was cancelled for the first time since the tradition was established in 1981.

Broens Skøjtebane / Broens Ice Skating Rink