Austria Traditional Winter Resorts
The sport of skiing likes to market itself as a high-tech up-market pastime with the latest in facilities.
Yet much of the attraction for amateur participants – and that means just about everyone taking a winter holiday is the sense of getting back in touch with nature surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
Austria can add a clutch of traditional towns and villages to that mixture. Resorts that were there before the sport of skiing existed but which participated in the foundations of the sport:
Kitzbühel
Kitzbühel is a town with a strong mining history. It would be difficult to tell that these days (unless you assumed that the richly-dressed glitterati in the most upmarket restaurants were Eastern European mine owners) but that tradition and history is displayed in the well-preserved and mostly-pedestrianized town centre.
Tradition also seeps into the skiing. The Kitzbühel ski instructors and schools are renowned for their standards of instruction and technique. And the attraction of the annual World Cup ski races on the renowned Hahnenkamm run, which attract spectators in the tens of thousands and a TV audience of many millions, cuts across all classes of Austrian society.
The ski area has plenty of modern facilities, with new lifts and connections through to Kirchberg and Westendorf making it amongst the largest in the world. But it is still the kind of area where you can also end up enjoying a schaps in a wooden farming hut hidden away in the trees.
In a word: Kitzbühel is still one of the premier ski resorts in the country, adding modern facilities to a traditional charm and history.
Zell am See
The Austrian Imperial rulers thought Zell am See an ideal location – an opinion shared by the Romans who also lived here centuries before. Set between a picturesque lake and the ski slopes behind, Zell am See is one of the most photogenic winter locations in the country.
Before ski tourism started in the early 20th century, it was interest in spa breaks that oiled the motor of local tourism and some of the more prestigious hotels in the town can date their success back to those days.
But Zell am See isn’t just suitable for the rich and well-connected. It has a well-deserved reputation for a fairly raucous nightlife which tends to cut down social barriers and a neighbouring hamlet which offers a connection to the same ski area at the other end of the price scale from the four-and five-star lakeside establishments.
In a word: Zell am See offers traditional and expensive lakeside accommodation alongside cheap and cheerful bed-and-breakfast pensions – a mix which gives a refreshing and lively atmosphere to the resort.
St Anton am Arlberg
St Anton can boast all kinds of tradition.
A sense of history when one thinks of the monks who in the 14th century set up the hospice above the town on the Arlberg pass between the Tyrol and the Vorarlberg.
A sense of tradition when one considers the advances in modern ski technique which can be traced back to skiing innovators from the Arlberg region.
And the sense of the place that the town and winter resort has held for decades in the hearts of all serious skiers. Talk about a ‘bucket list’ of resorts to visit to advanced skiers from all over the world and St Anton will feature heavily amongst the most popular ski areas on that list.
The town deserves it. Spruced up with new lifts and transport connections it may be, but it still has the soul of a ski bum.
Verdict: St Anton is Austria’s classic advanced resort – bump runs, seriously steep off-piste routes and a massive expanse of connected areas for the serious skier to play in.
Author Bio
This guest post has been written by Stephen Rout, a web publisher who runs a number of sites from his base in a traditional Tyrolean village.
