Winter in Milan: ice skating
With the coming of the winter and with Christmas approaching, big cities rediscover the joy to put on the ice skates, and Milan with its ice skating opportunities has definitely a huge offer, thanks to the many equipped locations around the city. A sport that by nature envisions all the beauty of the holiday season!
But how was this discipline invented? You need to know that the skates were conceived about 5000 years ago, with the practical goal to be used as a transportation way through the long winter times. Doing so, people of the time were able to move saving up to 10% of their daily use of kilocalories, compared to the ones used to walk on ice. A matter of survival, we can say, where skates made with bones and scalp, were a useful life tool.
Then, around 1300, the first iron skates were invented in Holland, but till 1850 they were only a pair of blades positioned with straps under the shoes, that means they were only simple instruments.
It is in Sweden that the real fun activity evolved, moving afterwards to Holland where it became a proper national sport. And from there the diffusion all over the world, arriving to the contemporary winter habit of setting up temporary open air ice skating rinks in the most fascinating locations of various cities.
