FRANCE: Ice skating high up on the Eiffel Tower exhilarates tourists despite freezing temperatures

Record ID: 817716

  • Title: FRANCE: Ice skating high up on the Eiffel Tower exhilarates tourists despite freezing temperatures
  • Date: 21st December 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) BURT AND COLETTE, AMERICAN TOURISTS FROM UTAH ON THEIR HONEYMOON, SAYING: (COLETTE): "It's awesome, once in a lifetime." (BURT): "I know, I don't even like skating." (COLETTE): "I'm terrible!" (SOUNDBITE) (French) HASIDIM, NATIVE OF POITIERS REGION IN FRANCE VISITING PARIS, SAYING: "I think it's a monument that has challenged all the other monument
  • Embargoed: 5th January 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France, France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Entertainment,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky,Travel / Tourism
  • Reuters ID: LVA2WVP9DRNB8YNHKR2PSY37WRAO
  • Story Text: A surprise was waiting for tourists on the first floor of Paris' most popular monument, the Eiffel Tower, on Monday (December 20), where the doors of crowded lifts opened to a sparkling ice skating rink for the first time during the winter season.
    Free skates were provided for visitors to borrow at the entrance of the rink after they purchased tickets to the tower's first floor, which boasts an unbeatable panorama of the Champ de Mars and the Place des Invalides.
    Despite freezing temperatures, a sizeable crowd of children and adults alike enjoyed themselves at the small but memorable skating rink.
    For American tourists Burt and Colette, who are on their honeymoon in Paris, ice skating on top of the world's most recognisable monument was an "awesome" and "once in a lifetime" experience.
    There is a higher ice rink in Paris at the Montparnasse tower, an equally iconic Parisian monument facing the Eiffel Tower but for many nothing can beat the magic of the Eiffel Tower.
    "I think it's a monument that has challenged all the other monuments, even the most contemporary ones. We recognise Paris through the Eiffel Tower, there you go. It's really magnificent to be able to come together here, to visit it and then to have fun like children with my children," Hasidim, a Poitiers native visiting the French capital for the Christmas holidays with his family told Reuters Television.
    The 200 square-meter rink is surrounded by Christmas decorations and lights which shine on the ice at night.
    The skating rink, which was first placed on the Eiffel Tower's first level in 2006, will stay open to public for two months from morning until late in the evening.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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