A typical ski day for a Münchner starts with a painfully early wake up. Well before dawn, you toss on your ski clothes and haul your gear to the ski bus, or if you’re lucky, the car. Grab some coffee and a pretzel from your nearest bakery (the only thing open at this predawn hour) and hit the road. » Read the full post
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Recently I had the opportunity to go on a press trip with Creative Tourism Austria. We spent the first day in the lovely little town of Schlierbach. I am pretty familiar with the Alpy part of Austria, and the Viennese part of Austria, but I think this was my first visit to the gently-hilly part of Upper Austria. We were assured that the landscapes and views are lovely in this part of the world, but alas, heavy fog kept us from enjoying them with our own eyes. No matter, as we found plenty to do indoors at Stift Schlierbach, a monastery full of activities that don’t require the least bit of chastity or charity. » Read the full post
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On our recent trip to Innsbruck I had the pleasure of meeting Elena Paschinger of Kreativ Reisen Österreich (Creative Tourism Austria). As an artist and avid traveler, i was excited to learn more about creative tourism. I thought several of my readers would, too, so I asked Elena to answer some questions for us. » Read the full post
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Our first stop in the Ötztal was the recently-rebuilt Hotel Bergland in the mountain town of Sölden. Situated as it is in the Alps, it’s the kind of place that is full of skiers in the winter and hikers and bikers in the summer. After being welcomed with lunch in their dining room, we went on a tour of the hotel and then ended up at the top-floor spa for an afternoon of deep relaxation. » Read the full post
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After Innsbruck, Scott and I split up to try out two different blogger trips that were offered to the conference attendees. How can you not love a conference that comes with free travel at the end?
I went for the Relaxation in the Ötz Valley (Ötztal) trip. We’ve been to this part of Austria before, but always in winter to ski. The Alps feel like a different world in summer. » Read the full post
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Last week we headed to Innsbruck to attend a travel blogging conference. This little city nestled in the mountains absolutely oozes Austrian charm, so it was nice to have an excuse to go back. The old city center is full of pedestrian streets lined with shops and cafes, perfect for wandering around aimlessly. » Read the full post
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This past weekend we bummed a ride with the Munich International Ski Club for a day of skiing at Sheffau, Austria. Sheffau is just one of many entry points into the irrsinnig gross* ski area which includes 91 lifts and almost 300 km of slopes. There was lots of fresh snow, and a little too much sunshine. Very good conditions.
Sheffau isn’t quite as friendly for beginner skiers as Kitzbühel was, since there are areas where one has to ski red slopes to access other parts of the resort. Long red (middle) slopes are plentiful, and it would be easy to ski all day and never see the same slope twice. Lift lines were mixed, but we probably never waited more than 5 minutes to get on a lift.
One thing I disliked about Sheffau was the poorly-designed labeling system and map they had going on. Instead of numbering the trails, like most resorts do, the Sheffau folks decided to number the lifts. Horrible idea, given that trails don’t neatly correspond to lifts. We spent much too much time puzzling over maps. But otherwise it was a lovely day of skiing.
* ludicrously large
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Thinking back on last ski season, we’re having a hard time remembering all the places we skied and which ones we liked the best. So this year I’m going to try blogging a little review of each place.
First up is Kitzbühel, Austria, where we recently spent a day. It’s about an hour and a half drive from Munich. It was a great place to spend the first ski day of the season, since there were tons of blue (easy) slopes. We skied the whole day and only repeated the same runs a couple times; on the other hand, neither of us found any runs we really loved. Things were icy in spots, since there hadn’t been any new snow for several days; the skies were clear and blue, and it was quite warm in the sun. We had lunch at the Pengelstein hut, which offered a pretty good variety of food (I had spinach strudel with Gorgonzola sauce).
After a day on the slopes, we headed into the town of Kitzbühel to find some food and drinks. The town itself was quite cute, and offered a variety of cafes and restaurants (mostly Italian).
We wandered into the tourist office and asked for a restaurant recommendation. They suggested Huberbräustüberl, a cozy little brewery restaurant serving typical Austrian/German food. The beer was good and the food adequate. The wait staff was friendly and seemed to have fun speaking English to the tourists around us (we spoke to them in German). Both of us filled up on dinner, so we had to miss out on the black guy in a shirt. Schade.
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My computer situation is still… not good, but hopefully that won’t last too much longer. I have plenty more blog posts that are just aching to come out…
We popped down to Austria for a final ski trip of the season yesterday. It’s so easy to do this that I’m having a hard time remembering that Austria is, in fact, another country. You’d think after two years in Switzerland I’d be over the novelty of popping into another country for a day trip, but you’d be wrong. What can I say? I’m easily impressed.
The time change meant we got even less precious sleep than we normally would have, but on the plus side now we can be happy that all that daylight is no longer going to waste. And, we’re finally back to our normal 6-hour time difference from the east coast of the US. Whew.
We went to the irrsinnig gross ski area called SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser Brixental, which was indeed quite sizable. The skiing was pretty good – slushy, to be sure, but that slush allowed me to ski the red slopes like a rock star, granting me the opportunity to think that my skiing skills have actually improved in the past couple seasons. The sun was brutal and relentless (some people might have called it ‘pleasant’ or even ‘beautiful’), and we probably could have spent most of the day skiing in little more than t-shirts.
Forgot to bring the camera this time, but I’ll add a photo off of the old camera phone as soon as I can figure out how to magically beam it to the computer. Or you can just get the general idea from any other photo I’ve taken skiing.
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We would be awfully bummed about moving away from Switzerland in the middle of ski-season… if we hadn’t moved to Munich. The oh-so-conveniently-located Austrian Alps are close enough for easy day-trip skiing. Unfortunately this season hasn’t been as snowy as we would like, but the Austrians seem to be pretty good at filling in the gaps with man-made snow.
There seem to be dozens of resorts to choose from. In January we hit Kaltenbach, and just yesterday we were in Alpbachtal. Kaltenbach had a nice variety of runs, and our enjoyment was greatly enhanced by a covey of skiing witches. Alpbachtal was a little short on the blue (easy) slopes, but I managed to stay entertained for the entire day (and conditions were even good enough for me to successfully navigate a couple red runs). We also enjoyed riding the charmingly antique single-chair lift.
While lift tickets seem to have comparable prices in Austria and Switzerland, equipment rental is noticeably cheaper in Austria (skiing pro that I am, naturally I own my own, but Scott is still renting until he finds a snowboard he can fall in love with that doesn’t have a wild west theme painted on it). From what I’ve seen, Switzerland has more ski areas that are easily reachable by train than Austria does. We’ve heard that Germany’s Garmisch is a quick and easy train ride away, but haven’t had the chance to try it out yet.
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