A single car makes its way along a snow-covered road near the southern German city of Waldkirch

mother-to-be on a snowbound island.

For hundreds of passengers trapped at the main Paris and Brussels airports overnight because of the freezing weather however, the nightmare drew to a close: European flights were almost back to normal Saturday.

For the first time since 1981, swimmers arrived at the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park for the 100-yard (91-metre) open-air race to find the lake had frozen over.

It was the result of a cold snap that forecasters predict could make this the coldest December in Britain for more than 100 years.

In Castlederg, Northern Ireland, the temperature was minus 17.1 Celsius (1.22 Fahrenheit) on Christmas morning.

On England’s south coast, members of the Brighton Swimming Club took their annual Christmas dip in the Channel, where the temperature was a refreshing 3.3 degrees Celsius (38 degrees Fahrenheit).

On the Danish island of Bornholm even a tracked military vehicle failed to get through the snow to take a midwife to the village of Tejn — so a colleague took to her skis instead.

Rene Wang Hansen told AFP the midwife covered six or seven kilometres (four or five miles) to reach his daughter Gitte, who later was finally able to board an army personnel carrier to get to hospital for the birth of her son.

The Baltic island of some 43,000 people has been snowbound since Thursday with police advising everyone to stay at home. Hundreds of tourists and other visitors have been put up in a gymnasium and a military barracks.

In Germany, another Baltic island, Ruegen, was also snowbound and no trains were running, but rail operator Deutsche Bahn said conditions were improving elsewhere and there were no major problems.

In the northwestern state of North Rhine-Westphalia police warned pedestrians to be on their guard after a woman was killed Friday by a falling branch in the forest of Gelsenkirchen.

In Moscow, icy rainfall onto frozen streets turned the Russian capital into a giant skating rink, and authorities warned residents to stay indoors while they de-iced the roads and pavements.

Traffic is traditionally heavy in the run up to the new year and the Russian Orthodox Christmas, on January 7.

But local government spokesman Igor Pergamenshik warned: “Weather conditions are very difficult in the capital.

“When it (the rain) falls onto the ground, it turns into a layer of ice because of the negative temperatures.”

Airlines took advantage of fewer Christmas Day flights to clear runways and the backlog of passengers, some of whom had waited for days to leave.

About 200 travellers woke up on Christmas morning at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport after authorities had laid on what entertainment they could on Christmas Eve.

Departure screens showed nearly all flights due to leave on time, as staff folded away the camp beds that had been provided along with food, Christmas toys, a Santa Claus and a Catholic mass for the faithful.

“The children have presents, we have things to eat and drink,” said Beatrice Clavel, stranded with her husband Didier and their two children.

“All that’s missing is a good shower.”

The problems at the airport were compounded by a strike by workers at France’s main anti-freeze factory, but conditions improved when supplies arrived from abroad.

Transport Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet announced an inquiry into the airport’s handling of its glycol stocks and said officials had to learn from experience, particularly with regard to providing information for passengers.

It was a similar story at Brussels’ where some passengers had to sleep over into Christmas morning. On Saturday however, the situation was returning to normal.

“We?ve cleaned enough snow to be able to return to normal winter operations,” said a statement on its website.

Virtually no public transport ran in Britain as usual on Christmas Day, not even Eurostars to and from the continent, but trains in France were back to normal, though high-speed services were still delayed by speed restrictions.

In contrast to the chilly conditions across Europe, Bulgaria experienced record highs of up to 20 degrees Celsius in some central parts, way above the seasonal average which is below zero.

People walk on a snow covered street in front of the Invalides museum in Paris. Heavy snow blanketed Paris Wednesday forcing the closure of the Eiffel Tower and briefly shutting its main airport as sub-zero temperatures turned Scottish roads into deadly ice sheets and Spain and Portugal cleared up after flooding and tornado-like winds.

Road, rail and air travellers faced fresh disruption following last week’s transport shutdown with Paris’s Charles de Gaulle-Roissy airport closed for an hour-and-a-half and the mercury plummeting as low as minus 18.3 degrees Celsius (minus one degree Fahrenheit) at Tyndrum in the Scottish highlands.

In Portugal the high winds carried off cars, uprooted trees, tore off roofs and blew over electricity poles Tuesday, leaving around 30 people injured. A second body was recovered in Spain Wednesday following flooding.

France’s meteorological service France Meteo said 11 centimetres (four inches) of snow fell in central Paris, the heaviest snowfall since 1987.

Around 100 flights were prevented from taking off or landing at Roissy airport during the temporary closure while workers cleared the runways of the heavy snow that began falling around midday, airport officials said.

Thousands of passengers were stranded at the airport late Wednesday as the approach roads to Roissy were blocked, Air France said..

One in five flights were earlier cancelled at the request of France’s civil aviation authority (DGAC) due to the poor weather forecast.

Runways at Paris’s second airport Orly were also shut for about half-an-hour for snow to be cleared and flights were delayed by up to two hours.

The deluge left all motorways in the Paris region impassable and only a handful of the 350 Paris bus routes were operating.

Truckers were ordered to pull off the highways and wait until conditions improved. Five thousand police, including 2,000 in the Paris area, were deployed, while officers in four wheel drive vehicles went to the aid of stranded motorists in the Yvelines region west of Paris.

The operators of the Eiffel Tower first shut only the first floor of the giant monument that is one of the world’s most visited sites.

“But since late morning the Eiffel Tower has been completely closed and will certainly not reopen today,” said a spokesman.

In Scotland, First Minister Alex Salmond said everything possible was being done to keep the country moving.

One of the country’s busiest motorways, the M8, remained partially shut, train services were disrupted and police advised motorists not to drive unless their journey was absolutely essential. Many schools also closed for the day.

Temperatures were expected to stay well below freezing throughout Scotland until Thursday — leaving thick sheets of ice and compacted snow on roads and pavements.

“When ice gets onto motorways, salt doesn’t dissolve the ice underneath minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit)…. These are just the realities of exceptional weather conditions,” Salmond said.

Edinburgh council was meanwhile in discussions with the Scottish government and the army about bringing in soldiers to help clear snow from the city’s streets.

Up to 76 centimetres (30 inches) of snow has fallen in parts of the capital and the temperature dropped to minus 14.6 degrees Celsius.

Hundreds of motorists were earlier in the week left stranded in their cars after they became trapped on snowbound roads in the worst conditions seen since the 1960s.

Elsewhere in Europe, police in Spain recovered the body of a nine-year-old boy who went missing after the car he was travelling in was swept away by floodwater.

The boy’s father and his elder brother were able to escape from the vehicle which was swept into the river Alcudia near the south-central town of Almodovar del Campo in the Castilla-La Mancha region on Tuesday evening.

His death was the second from the storms that have battered southern Spain and Portugal since Saturday.

The flooding has blocked dozens of roads and forced the evacuation on Tuesday of some 3,000 people in the Andalucian town of Ecija after the river Genil burst its banks.

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