This is one of my most important reviews to make, because this rink in Bad Sachsa is one of the few open all year in Germany. It also does NOT appear if you search on Google Maps for rinks.
Finding out about it, by word of mouth, was a huge deal for me. It changed my outlook greatly after moving and discovering the rinks close for as much as half the year.
https://www.salztal-paradies.de/eislaufhalle.htmlThis rink is very relaxed and fun. It is part of an indoor waterpark and sauna. It wasn’t so easy to locate from the parking structure, being through some doors, down a long wooden corridor, and then even out through another building too.
You pay, a reasonable 6.50 euros at the cashier area of the water park for several hours of public skate. Exit that building and find the Eislaufhalle up some more stairs. They have a token system to enter through tall (NY subway style) turnstiles. It’s a tough squeeze with my gear!
Inside are bathrooms, small locker room, vending machines, and skate rentals.
Outside they have a food truck, including beer (it’s Germany lol,) and there is a beer garden for bored non-skaters dragged along.
The ice is nothing to write home about, especially after a few hours, but it is there and welcomed all summer by skaters from hours away.
Sometimes they resurface halfway through, (but definitely not often enough to meet the standards of some girls I skated with in NY.
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The rink is undersized at 30x45m.
It is cheerful with colourful banners and often unusually good music. (The farewell song to clear the ice is another matter!
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Summer hours are limited to 16:00-19:00 Tuesday-Thursday, but in the season Friday is 14:00-19:00 along other weekend hours beginning at noon and Saturday ice disco sessions.
There is no freestyle, only public, but they allow figure skating and other tricks done by “freestyle” skaters in the German sense of it (looking like breakdancing and rollerblade stuff.) I saw my coach with a girl doing doubles or maybe triples. My eye can never catch it to be sure.
They also have various skate camps.