Skate-Escape Switzerland Holiday

August 2007

by Andrew Smith

Flew into the lovely Zurich airport and delivered myself into the hands of the lovely Linda and Debbie, once the other guests arrived we set off back to the hotel in Staad. Arrival went smoothly and we were soon unpacked and ensconced in our lakeside hotel.

Debbie took us on our first skate around the area, a nice meander that introduced us to the area. This was the first time most of us were out together, some of us were on recreational skates and some on speed skates, but everyone was enjoying themselves. We all stayed together easily, after all this was a holiday not a race, and I think the happy smiling faces at the end proved this.

The evening meal was a nice relaxed affair, the food was great and we were well looked after by Mike and Madeleine who seemed to be our waiters for the week. Alexandra, the hotel proprietor was always available as well, so all in all we were rather pampered.

Next day we had a lovely skate along the Rhine from Trubbach to Schaan covering around 18km before ending in Liechtenstein for lunch. After the roads around London, the skate along the Rhine was an amazing car-free pleasure, smooth and flat with other users happily coexisting with us.

Monday was rather wet, but we had decided to skate with Dirk and his group of 30 skaters from Germany who were over to do the 111, even though it was raining that did not diminish the enthusiasm of everyone involved. But I have to admit keeping up with them was interesting at times, until I found out the back of my jeans was rubbing the back wheels of my skates, once removed all became a lot easier, so "slaphead of the day" award for me. The skate ended at Konstanz where we were witness to some spectacular skating off the end of the pier into the lake by Linda and Dirk with others just jumping in, while others availed themselves of the local baths.

Tuesday, we skated from Rorschach with Debbie leading, a nice touristy skate ending at Romanshorn where there were some skate ramps, where upon Debbie gave us a demo, though the rest of us were rather reluctant to try, so cheered her and Linda on from the sideline. We then decided to skate back but the rain caught us, so we stopped for ice cream and called for the van to pick us up.

The group split up for Wednesday, some decided to go into St Gallens while the rest of us skated to a lovely little restaurant with a fantastic mountain view before joining up with the others and heading back to the hotel. Linda and another guest even did a steep hill climb that tested their skating.

Friday we moved hotels to the centre of Zurich, sad to leave Staad but we had a lovely skate around lake Griefensee before lunch and heading into Zurich. Local skater, Alonzo and some friends put together a great skate around the centre of Zurich so a big thank you to Alonzo for organizing it as well as Tony, Carston, Mark and Stefan for looking out for us. Zurich is a great place to skate smooth wide streets and the traffic seems happy to coexist with us. Saturday was the leaving day, some left early others like me later in the day, so we had a little wander around the area on skates, leisurely lunch before leaving for the airport. It was a great wind down day in glorious sunshine and by that time I think we were all happy to leisurely skate around. I did get to race back to the hotel to collect my bags with Linda, needless to say she won, but was really good fun to be able to let loose without having to watch for taxis aiming for you.

On average we covered between 15 and 20 miles a day, in safety, with beautiful views and glorious weather.

The big question is would I do it again? Yes, it was an absolutely amazing experience.

My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who made this an experience to remember but especially to Linda for organising this, and Debbie for helping.

So Linda, when is the next trip?

Andrew

Links

Skate Escape - Linda and Debbie

Frankfurt TNS - Dirk's group.

Video of some top skaters doing flying 200s on the track mentioned above, courtesy of Niki Neck:

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