Alan was the one managing the perfect logistics of our trip to Austria.
Day 1
We flew out very early on Friday morning - on the 7.15am flight after I arrived to Kings Cross at just before midnight, we only achieved 2.5 hours sleep and I was asleep on the plane before they'd even done the safety briefing (impressive as it was a loud flight with at least one stag party!) We landed and got a very easy bus to outside our hotel - the AC Hotel - which only took 20 mins. We were too early for check in so we changed into ski gear and left our bags with reception and rented some skis and poles for me from a shop 2 minutes walk away. We weren't sure how long to hire skis for as we were only one night in Innsbruck before travelling to Westerndorf for more skiing! Helpfully the shop said we could return the skis at 8am on Monday morning so we took out 3 days hire and headed to the train station to get a train to Bergeralm Steinach resort which again was only around 20 mins journey. We took the first gondala up to the little resort which offered a few blue and red runs and the possibility of night skiing. We arrived just at lunchtime and I wasn't hungry at that point so we headed up on the chair lift to do the blue run....only when we got there only a steep and icy red was available which was intimidating as I've only ever struggled to get down green or easy blue runs! It was also quite windy which I've got limited experience of...but I managed to pick my way down safely with long wide turns, fell over once and lost my skis, but managed to put them back on whilst on the steep slope. The red eventually became a blue and was much more slushy which threw me off and I ended up catching a front edge and flipping head over heels landing slightly on my head with feet in the air (but this time I think both skis stayed attached!) It threw me a bit so we got to the bottom and tucked into lunch - I had schnitezel and chips and Alan had a frankfurter.
We did a couple more blue runs off the end of a drag lift, but the slush wasn't as appealing and so we called it a day and headed back to Innsbruck. After a well earned nap back in the lovely hotel (great view from the 12th Floor!) we ventured out for dinner and found a lovely Austrian Bier Keller type restaurant - Stiftskeller and enjoyed a "sausage salad" which included shredded ham and then I had pork with saukerraut.
Day 2
Saturday morning we were able to enjoy breakfast buffet in the hotel before getting a bus to Innpromenade parkrun, Innsbruck for their 25th event and we met some other tourists and managed a steady run along the river with snow topped mountains in the background - it was beautiful and as always very friendly, but we couldn't stop for coffee and headed straight back to the hotel and got onto a pre booked train to Westerndorf which only took around 90 minutes.
It was a little walk uphill to a lovely hotel - Hotel Apart Garni Heisenhof with lovely spacious rooms, a good ski room and perhaps best of all - hotel cats with instructions of how to interact with them!
We changed into ski gear and took the ski bus to the bottom of the main Westerndorf lift and headed up on a gondala to a long and very slushy blue run (it was quite late in the day) and so much to Alan's frustration it took me around an hour to get down with many many turns, but at least no falling over this time! This did present a potential to miss the last lift, but thankfully Alan managed to work out the logistics to get us back to the top of the main gondala and we were down for 4.30pm, annoyingly just missing the last ski bus, although the ski bus driver suggested if we tipped him he'd drop us back...and so we did manage to get back without having to walk a mile and a half with skis.
We did some tripadvisor research and managed to find a restaurant that was in walking distance of the hotel called Glennies. The food was stunning - we both had a salmon starter which was possibly the best dish with delicate flavours and presentation and we went full in with 3 courses and some gluhwein.
Day 3
Sunday was a bit of a slower start and we had a delicious buffet breakfast, made even better by us meeting one of the hotel cats. We had planned to get a bus towards Brixen, but when the ski bus arrived at the same time as we got to the bus stop we headed over to Westerndorf main lift and headed up to where we'd been the day before, but thanks to Alan's planning we ended up via 3 gondalas in Brixen and I loved the routes up there. It was less slushy than the day before, even if the visibility at the top was limited. Some of the blue slopes were steep, but I made my way down without having a melt down and was overjoyed to see a black squirrel after a particularly steep section. We stopped for lunch and then had another few runs finishing the day with a beer just before the lift back to Brixen and then had to have an Irish coffee whilst we waited for the bus back to the hotel.
We decided to go to Glennies again as it was so good, tried some different dishes and it was just as great as the night before.
Day 4
We made sure we got an early night as we knew we'd be up at 6am to get the 6.50am train back to Innsbruck. Thankfully Alan had booked us seats as it was a busy train, but we were comfortable and we were back at the ski rental shop for 8am and then straight onto a bus to the airport.
Only 2 days of leave were taken up, and I didn't enjoy the extreme lack of sleep on Friday, but I'd absolutely do it again as it felt like we were away for much longer as the travel was so efficient.
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