|
|
Sunday, May 18, 2008
About skiing in Austria and not blogging... So I haven't blogged very much over the last 6 months. At least not on my travel blog. "What's up?" you may say, "is he not going anywhere anymore?!?". Quite the contrary, actually! I have been traveling like crazy, and I have been so busy with all kinds of situations that I just didn't have the time and energy to blog. I guess I needed a "blogging hiatus" you could say. But now I am back! And I have some catching up to do! I haven't at all talked about the time I spent in Europe this winter, so I will do that in this post). I also haven't told you about my inner-American trips, some of which I still plan to catch up on (such as my recent cruise down to Mexico).
So what have I been up to this past fall and winter? Well, I spend a whole lot of time going back between the US and Europe. Most of my Europe-time I spent in Austria as you may have guessed. In fact, this was an awesome winter. Not a huge amount of snow all in all, but it snowed enough early on to make it an awesome skiing winter. And unlike in recent years, I had decided to buy my own gear and season tickets again, and even though I do not live there full time, I managed to take great advantage of them. (For about Euro 450, I got a "Super Ticket" which allowed me to ski anywhere in the region of Salzburg and parts of Tirol, which amounts to a large number of resorts and god knows how many thousands of miles of slopes). I probably skied about 20 times or more. Having my own gear (as opposed to renting them) allowed me to just grab my stuff and go for 2 or 3 hours if I didn't have more time. It was expensive to get all the gear again, but in hindsight, it was def. worth it. Plus, I can use it all again next season, so it is an "investment into the future".
I did most of my skiing near my hometown of Saalfelden, which means the resorts of Zell am See, Saalbach, Kitzsteinhorn (the glacier where that big accident happened a few years ago), Leogang, and Hochkoenig. Combined, these resorts make some of the greatest skiing you can do on this planet. If you are into skiing at all and fancy a trip to the alps sometime, this is def. an area you should consider. Zell am See and Saalbach are touristic slam-dunks anyway, and Leogang is really catching up and an insider-tip. (For a great fancy hotel, check out the Krallerhof!).
BTW: If you consider going there, you basically have two options: 1) Fly into Salzburg, which is most convenient but also expensive, or 2) fly into Munich, which leaves you with a 2 hour drive (either by taxi or with a rental car, which is quite easy), but is generally the better option from the US because it is less expensive and also because you have way more flight options. You could probably get there with frequent flyer miles if you fly a lot (going to Salzburg, that has never worked for me so far...).
Even Ellen got into it and improved a lot. Unfortunately, she twisted her knee the last day we went, which put a damper on things.Luckily, she didn't need any surgery. Knee-injuries are very common with modern skies, unfortunately. But it could have been worse, and I hope she will ski again next year.
Anyway: I was so busy skiing this year, I didn't take a lot of photos. Here are a few thought that should give you an impression (for a complete set of skiing photos, visit the album I created on Facebook):
Here are some I took with the iPhone, which came out predictably crappy, but should still give you an impression of what it is like:
Posted @ 10:41 PM by Egger, Markus (markus@code-magazine.com)
|