Austria
What Ryan and I did and what we recommend you do when you
visit
Interesting Facts -
We used the city of Salzburg as base camp
for the whole trip. The ski areas are an easy 40 minutes to 1 ˝ hours
away. Thus a rental car is
required. If I were to do it over again
I would base myself in Innsbruck Alps and could easily make a day trip to see Salzburg
Ski Mountain Facts - We skied at 4 different mountains on this trip, the Kaprun Glacier at Zell Am See, Bad Gastein, Sport Gastein, and Zauchansee. I recommend them all, but my personal favorite was Bad Gastein. It had tons of off the beaten path areas to explore. It offers Great bowls, good snow, no crowds, and difficult terrain. The Kaprun Glacier was just plain cool; and the snow here was the best of the bunch. The Glacier is open year round for skiing. They have some great open bowls and tons of lifts. We were able to find some nice challenging, powder runs when we ventured off the beaten path. Sport Gastein, or ICE Gastein, needed snow bad. This made the experience less than desirable. But I could tell that given snow the Mountain would be more than adequately challenging. We went here our first day and where unable to give it another try after the area got dumped on with snow later in the week. Next time. Zauchansee has varied terrain. A good mountain overall, and given the altitude here, the snow is dependable. Nice, mid-mountain, restaurants with outdoor picnic tables. Great place to kick back with a local German brew and engage in some hard-core people watching. Also a great place to give your burning leg muscles some much-needed rest.
All of the mountains have reduced ski passes after
Expect to pay between $30-$35 for a lift ticket. Make sure you take some time afterward to check out the ski towns. These are exactly like the perfect little ski villages you conjure up in your dreams.
Restaurants
– We ate breakfast at the hotel every
morning before we ventured out. Typical
German/English buffet filled with hearty stuff and of course their infamous
“hockey puck” rolls. As for dinner, we
ate at a really good Indian restaurant in
Lodging – We stayed at the Hotel Mercure Salzburg. Nice place, great breakfast buffets. Everything worth going to is within walking distance. The staff is pleasant but not overly so, typical German service I suppose.
Shopping
– The main shopping street in
Other cool stuff to do and places to visit – Visit the Castle in Salzburg, Festung Hohensalzburg. Old, well maintained medieval fortress. Impressive, a must see. Visit the Residenz Salzburg. Bring your bathing suit with you to Gastein for the public hot springs there. They are located right in front of the main Bad Gastein gondola. Visit the Monastery’s Beer Hall in Salzburg. Great time, great beer. Visit the Irish Pub, O’Malley’s in Salzburg. This pub is in the catacombs of Salzburg and has live music, rock and roll. Note: most of the music in Austria is American rock and roll.
Transportation Tips – We flew KLM into Munich, Germany and made
the short 2hr drive over to Salzburg, Austria.
Rent the fastest car you can afford if you want to take full advantage
of the German Autobahn’s! The roads are
well marked, but finding a map in English was another matter. Bring one with you. In Salzburg, walking is the way to go.
Check
out our trip Photos here!
Check
out our trip Videos here!
Have Fun!
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Last
updated: November 23, 2002