We're recently back from a trip to Austria, where my sister in law has an apartment. I've blogged about trips to Austria before as we've visited a couple of times previously - just search the blog for "Austria", but never visited in the winter.
This time we chose to go in January, along with our adult daughter, and another sister in law and her daughter who goes most years to go skiing.
We aren't skiers - I've never skied in my life, although I always fancied it, but at nearing mid 60's and with at least half a false knee, I'm not sure it's a great idea now, but more of that later.
My brother in law had put me on his car's insurance so we could go off exploring whilst they went skiing, but it was still a surprise to exit Salzburg airport the evening we arrived to be handed the keys by him with a "Well, you might as well drive" the hour or so's journey from Salzburg to Rauris in -14º temps and mostly pitch black!
Still, we made it ok. As previous blogs have noted, Rauris is a small rural village with decent skiing in the winter. The apartment has 3 bedrooms and is nice and comfortable with good views of the mountains
There were nine of us in all (over two apartments), comprising four skiers and 5 non skiers. The skiers obviously did their thing whilst the rest of us walked, took cable cars up the mountains to alms, enjoyed the views, the food, the beer and the aprés ski. We generally met up with the skiers at around lunchtime in one of the mountain alms for something to eat and some refreshment. A couple of meals out in the evening went down well, and one evening we did a long toboggan ride (about 5km in all down a mountain "road", although snowed over and with 4ft -6 ft snow banks each side it wasn't your typical road!
Sunday
We stayed in Rauris, pottered around the village
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| Looking down the Rauris valley |
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| Rauris chuch and village |
Monday
We drove over to Angertal near Bad Hofgastein in the next valley, and took the cable car up the Stubnerkogel to around 2,200m (7,200ft) where the views were glorious
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| The gang above Bad Hofgastein |
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| The Gastein valley |
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The 140m long & 28m high
Stubnerkogel suspension bridge |
Tuesday
Tuesday dawned wet and dull Whilst the skiers went off somewhere we drove to Zell am See for a walk by the lake and a browse in the town (and coffee and cake!) One of our party who shall remain nameless (not me) had an altercation with an automatically cleaning toilet (basically got trapped inside when it started cleaning!!!). No harm done, but it was very funny!
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| The Grand Hotel Zell am See |
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| The offending automatic toilet |
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| Zell am See |
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| Ice patterns |
Wednesday
A brighter day than Tuesday, but a thaw was setting in as the temp rose to around freezing We wandered around Rauris in the morning, had a lazy lunch waiting for the skiers to return before going off on our toboggan trip at the Ammererhof Hotel at the top of the valley. Great fun! I only crashed twice too!
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| The Ammererhof Hotel |
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| A bit snowy up here! |
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| Ready for the off |
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| Tally Ho! |
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| Made it in one piece - just! |
Thursday
A pretty lazy day. Anne and I went for a walk around Rauris, before coming back for lunch and generally loafing about. The skiers returned about 4pm and we went over to the local aprés ski all for a bit of a session. Good fun was had by all!
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| One of the two rivers in Rauris |
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The oldest building in Rauris.
Still not sure what it is/was |
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| Apres ski! |
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| Shots |
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| Apres ski giggles |
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| Cheers! |
Friday
By now the temperature was above freezing, and the thaw was well and truly set in. What had been snow all over at ground level (970m above sea level, but still ground level), was now mostly gone apart from the snow cannoned nursery slopes and ski run finish. There was plenty of snow higher up though. We took the cable car up the mountain, and did a walk on a snowy trail back to an all for lunch before descending back by cable car.
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| My wife's niece on the slopes |
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| Starting our snowy walk at about 1,700m |
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| Mountains and valleys |
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| The snow's deep up here |
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| Tilly's Trail |
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| Snow angel |
All in all we had a great time. I was, I have to admit, quite jealous of the skiers. Despite my reservations on age and dodgy knees, when I saw the age and condition of some people on the slopes, I reckon I could give it a go. Who knows, maybe next year?
As an aside, what was truly magnificent was seeing the children on the slopes, some so small, but fearless and technically quite brilliant at skiing. Ah, sometimes I wish I was younger!!!
All photos here are from my iPhone. A fuller set taken with my "proper" cameras is available on
my Flickr pages here.
Twitter: @Statto1927
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