The Eleven City Ice skating-tour is a tour which goes along eleven Frisian cities, namely Leeuwarden, Sneek, IJlst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker, Dokkum and the finish is in Leeuwarden again. The tour is about 204 km long and at present the winner does it in less than 7 hours.

Already early in the history, when there was ice on the water, it was a craze to visit all the Frisian cities bij skate in one day. In the winter of 1890/1891 the media mentioned succesful 'Eleven City Ice skating-tours'. To proove that one had visited all the cities, some skaters collected the signatures of the local innkeepers. This is the comparable with the stamps you have to collect nowadays.

On the eighteenth December of 1908 the executive committee of the Frisian Ice-federation came together to work out the idea to organise an Eleven City Ice skating-tour. Mister Mulier liked to organise a tour along 11 cities in Friesland. The Frisian Ice-Federation was invited to take the lead. It should be a recreation-tour, it shouldn't be a race. The second January of 1909 was the big day; the day of the first official Eleven City Ice skating-tour. It was a cold day; the temperature was around the freezing-point. The skaters went northbound after the start, as they go southbound now. They went off, with twenty-two skaters, at twenty minutes past five. Twenty-six skaters had called off. There were only nine skaters who passed the finish. That is 40,9 %.

There wasn't an official route. Five skaters took the route beside Kimswerd. The others went beside a canal and partially beside the land of Bolsward. The mentality was very different. They didn't hurry. While two man had a headstart, they suddenly stopped to let a photographer take a picture. They also took a little time to repose. Minne Hoekstra was the fastest skater. He skated the tour in thirteen hours and fifty minutes. The media considered the tour as a great succes.

The Eleven City Ice skating-tour not goes on every year. If you look bright, you will see that it is going on seldom. Because people want to prevent, that there is no Eleven City Ice skating-tour, they have introduce the 'Alternative Eleven City Ice skating-tour'. The alternative tour is in Finland, because ther is every year ice on the water.