Travels by Bus
See the world on bus, ON foot & on my own.
AUSTRIA
Love of snow. Ski.
Vienna, Salzburg, ski resorts
The first Austrian city I visited was Vienna but it rained all the time so I didn't get to see anything. In fact it made me not interested in Austria at all. It was years later when I lived in Germany that I went to Austria again just because it is a neighbouring country but much for the snow and ski resorts.
SALZBURG
It is about 2 hours from Ingolstadt. I heard that it's a beautiful place so I thought it would be best to visit during Christmas so that I can have a white Christmas. Besides, the German rail - Deutsches Bahn - had just introduced a €15 single Bayern ticket. The ticket allowed unlimited travel for the day so after I left my bag at the pension in Salzburg, I went off to see Berchtesgaden for a day but here is Salzburg.
There was a tourist information at Salzburg's train station where you were supposed to be able to book accommodation. The woman was not very helpful and I found the same at the other tourist office in the city centre. One tourist information officer actually closed her counter to cut some shopping coupons for herself even though she saw many people coming in! Considering that many people come to Salzburg for Christmas, I was appalled by the service at the tourist offices. They were not forward with information and were unable to recommend me things to do for Christmas in Salzburg, and worse, rude! Luckily, the people on the street was not like that. In fact, I met very friendly and helpful bus drivers and had conversation with a couple of strangers. I ask myself why.
Despite being there all by myself on the first winter Christmas alone, I found Salzburg to be romantic: the Salzach river, the bicycle path parallel to it for joggers, roller bladers or just strollers. It was snowing and everywhere was white. I felt that Paris does not deserve the title of a romantic city but Salzburg does. I fell in love with Salzburg and contemplated quitting my MBA to move here. Ha!
This is the house where Mozart was born (Mozarts Geburtshaus). The house which he lived in - Mozarts Wohnhaus - is across the river. You can do The Sound of Music tour i.e. the Baroque Hellbrunn Palace 4 km south of Salzburg's old town. It was built in the 17th-century by bishop Marcus Sitticus. The grounds contain ingenious trick fountains and water-powered figures.
I'm not sure if it was because it is the birthplace of Mozart and that the Sound of Music was filmed here but I heard music all the time. I am never good with composing tunes but I was humming a new tune every minute.
Salzburg is also known to have one of the best Christmas markets. There were many stalls selling Christmas decoration and the famous Gluehwein (mulled wine) which encouraged you to stay outdoors because the drink keeps you warm.
Or some outdoor ice skating or chess are good too.
Salzburg was largely built by three bishop-princes in the late-16th and early-17th century, that's why it has Italian flavour with skyline punctuated by countless medieval spires, domes, belfries and turrets. The old town, on the south bank of the river, has Baroque churches, museums, plazas, courtyards and fountains, filled with lots of charms and tourists too. I heard a lot of English speakers and it was comforting somehow.
The Franziskanerkirch was my favourite and it was here that I attended Christmas eve mass.
The Dom, however, is the biggest church here with countless pipe organs and the most elaborated nativity set I have seen so far.
Here is the exterior of the Dom. It was nice that it was Christmas and have these carolers singing on the street.
There are more churches such as St Blasius' and the 9th-century built St Peter's Abbey where you can tour the catacombs at the back.
But the real highlight of this side of the river is the Hohensalzburg Castle which was built in 11th-century, standing on a rock outcrop about 120m above the city.
I took a tour of the castle which had torture chambers, state rooms, a tower and two museums where opera is sometimes performed here.
Hohensalzburg Festung
The tour of Hohensalzburg Castle wasn't as exciting as I had anticipated. The highlight, however, was the viewing deck where you can take in all the sights around. Too bad that because of security reasons, we needed a chaperone to be with us all the time which limited the time I got to spend here.
I stayed at the Kuenstlerhaus, literally translated as artist house, for 3 nights, €25 a night for a spacious room with a double bed, an additional single bed and a balcony. I guess it was a family room but it being Christmas, no family was travelling at this time. There was a wash basin in the room but toilet and shower is out in the corridor, luckily, next to my room. Each morning, I'd lie in bed to look at the great view of the river Salzach and the mountains outside. This was my first (and only) Christmas in Germany and I fell in love with Salzburg.
When we found out that James was in Ireland for a project, we decided to meet and ski together for 4 days. My housemate, Lukas, recommended St Anton, fondly known as "Stanton" to the Americans, which is about 4-hour drive from Munich. My first time renting a car from Hertz, picked James up at Munich airport and driving through mountaineous roads. What an exciting journey! Thankfully James is a calm and understanding passenger but he gets to drink so why should he complain, right? One night, we were stopped at a road block. The police asked for my drivers' licence but I vainly left it in the hotel because my party gear had no room for one.
I could tell that the policeman didn't know what to do about it but tried hard to keep a straight face. He said in Austria, a driver's licence is required all the time. I told him he could come to our hotel with us but he said they won't drive anywhere with me. He paused a few minutes, surveying the vehicle then he said, "Drive on. Next time remember to bring your driver's licence with you." We were lucky he didn't see that we didn't have a vignette, a pass for the roads in Austria because that would be a bigger offence. I only knew about it after my return.
St. Anton am Arlberg is at the western tip of Austria near the Arlberg tunnel, bordering the scenic Vorarlberg area next to Switzerland. I had no idea that this world-class skiing resort is a lively place with many young people making the nightlife pretty happening especially for singles. That was the reason why Lukas recommended us and silly me, I didn't even ask him why he highly recommended this place.
There were more men than women so the places James & I went to were very interesting for me. And it is very international.
The Arlberg Ski Pass covered the entire St. Anton, St. Christoph, Stuben, Lech and Zürs as shown on the pistemap above. They are all connected by a lift and bus system. St Christoph has snow skiable into May while Mt. Valluga is the highest point at a breathtaking 9,200 feet. There is over 160 km (100 miles) of off-piste, ungroomed routes which means skiing for all ability levels which meant that James & I were able to do our thing without running up each other's patience.
Skiing with James was a lot of fun. He wore his first skis when he was 4 so skiing is second nature to him. It is very encouraging to hear him say that I am good at skiing considering that I picked up skiing only in my 20s and I have not taken any lessons. He thought that some professional lessons will take me further and let me learn better techniques. I took his advice and signed up for a 1-day ski course and it did help me a lot.
Apparently this is the birthplace of ski races, and the very place where ski-champions Hans Schneider and Karl Schranz learned to ski.
The Arlberg-Kandahar Race was held here in 1928 and it hosts many skiing events, including the World Alpine Skiing Championships, each year. The FIS Skiweltcup Alpin Abfahrt was on and James got me an entry ticket so that we could witness one of the greatest skiing events.
Pettneu
As it was also a Valentine's weekend, most hotels were booked out. We were very fortunate to have a room at the Gasthof zur Traube in Pettneu, about 6km from St Anton am Arlberg. It's a small family run hotel which looked like it used to be a farm house. There is a restaurant which is booked out every night. We had dinner only on our last night there and realised why it is so popular! There is also a pub in the basement where the Brits outnumbered the Austrian. The music was good. But the best is the room with a lovely view of the mountains. James and I are good friends. It was really nice to be able to enjoy all these with a friend.
Pettneu lies in the romantic Stanzertal valley, which makes it the perfect hiking and mountaineering base for tours in the Lechtal Alps and Ferwall mountains with an overall trail length of 400 km. At the elevation of 1228 m, there are also ski runs here. And despite being a small village, it offers numerous facilities such as indoor pool with sauna and tanning studio, bowling hall, tennis courts, horse riding stables, cycling trails, mountain bike tours, rafting, and paragliding. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to do everything except skiing.
Being a Valentine's weekend, I was looking for a car rental special which would have given me a chance to drive a BMW 5-Series. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky. We ended up with an automatic Renault Laguna station wagen with a diesel engine. As I have not driven for about 4 years, I was a little nervous to do a long trip on my own, and in winter on snowy road. Lukas was so kind to believe in me and to boost my confidence, he went on a practice drive i.e. let me drive his stick shift VW van 2 days before I rented the car.
Since James just flew over from Ireland, he had to remind himself that continental Europe is driving on the right so he was making the "mistakes" of clicking on the blinker on the right and having to remind himself to "keep right" so at least I'm not alone :-)
We woke up late everyday because of the partying but mainly the skiing. Skiing is a strenous sports :) especially if you are not used to it after a year. We would be the last guests at breakfast and take the free shuttle bus to St Anton.
We skiied at St Anton on the first two days. Initially I only wanted to do one day of skiing, rest the next day and do snow boarding on the third day but after the first day, I felt really good and was determined to be better at it so I decided to take the ski rentals for 3 days. I wished I had borrowed the ski racks from Lukas since we have a stationwagen, they could be easily transported. Nevertheless, on the third day we drove to Zürs to ski there. We were there the night before for dinner. Dinner at Lindhof Hotel was exceptional & service was great. Zürs has only 3 x five-star hotels and no accommodation below 3-star. No wonder Zürs only have kings and queens as repeat clientele, making up 60% of Zurs annual guest list. Now that we have been there, it feels good to have made it to the prestigious list.
Located at 1700 metres, Zürs is one of the highest resorts on the system which claims to have Austria's best ski school. Many of the 140 instructors employed to serve a maximum of 1500 winter guests are booked up by repeat clients for the whole season. There's a popular heli-skiing ascent to two local peaks and for advanced skiers the chance to make an off-piste descent from St. Anton's half of the Arlberg over to Lech and Zürs by a route not served by lifts.
The beginner run here is a killer though. I actually spent some minutes staring at the steep downhill wondering what I should do but the guy manning the lift was very nice. He took me by the arm and gave me some tips. On the 1st run down, I simply went straight down. He only smiled and waved at me and encouraged me on, saying, "Das wird immer besser" - "it will only get better". On the 2nd run down, I managed to make turns and he applauded. So so nice! He was giving out gummy bears to the children and one for me.
It's so nice to have people believe in you. Like James do. He thought my driving and skiing were good.
I love Austria but being the only Asian, people stared at me all the time. In restaurants, Austrian diners will stop whatever they were doing and stared, even James noticed that. In such a touristic area with many people speaking English, I find this behaviour very disturbing. At the same time, English tourists will speak German to me, thinking that I'm German! It was funny and a great ski break with James.
INNSBRUCK Where Town Meets Country
After 3 days of skiing, we decided to drive to Innsbruck for sightseeing before hitting Munich for James' flight.
As printed on the tourism brochure, Innsbruck is indeed a very beautiful city with the majestic grandeur of the Alps as a stunning backdrop! Twice host to the Winter Olympics, it is a cultural center which has taken 800 years to evolve.
In the Old Town of medieval houses with Gothic and Baroque architecture is the Golden Roof. The Golden Roof has 2,738 gold-plated copper tiles constructed for Emperor Maximilian I to serve as a royal box where he could sit in luxury and enjoy tournaments in the square below. Completed in the 16th century, it was built in honor of Maximilian's second marriage, to Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan.
It is a pity that the beautiful buildings have to be marked with a golden McD arch too.
Next to this is the City Tower which was build from Year 1450. If you climb the 148 steps up, you will reach a platform 31m above the town where you can have a view of Innsbruck's mountain ranges. We decided that we will take in the view from the Plateau across the Inns river.
As we wonder what's the German version of the name James, we came to the Dom zu St Jakob with a sign saying James' church, which is puzzling. The church's organ is the most impressing I've ever seen!
Within walking distance is the Kaiserliche Hofburg built by Archduke Siegmund the Rich and Emperor Maximilian I in late Gothic Style. The most impressive hall is the "Giants Hall". The Chinese room and the bidet collection caught my eyes as well.
In the middle of Maria-Theresien Street is the St Anne´s Column with a statue of the Virgin Mary standing on a crescent moon atop the Corinthian column of red marble. It has statues of Saints Cassianus, Virgilius, George, and Anna surrounding the base. The column was erected in 1706 to celebrate the withdrawal, on St Anne´s day (July 26) in 1703, of invading Bavarian armies during the War of the Spanish Succession.
At the south end of the same street is the Triumphal Arch modeled after those in Rome. Empress Maria Theresa ordered it built in 1765 to honor the marriage of her son, the Duke of Tuscany, later Emperor Leopold II, to Maria Ludovica from Spain, and to mourn the death of her beloved husband, Francis I Stephen of Lothringen, who died during the celebrations. The marble friezes were created by Balthasar Moll in 1744. One side of the Arch symbolizes the joyful aspect of the event, the other side the sadness.
With that, we left the right bank and cross the Inns river to climb the long and winding road up to the Plateau. All the while I thought we were going to a castle only to go around in circle before we reached the magnificent viewpoint. It would be so nice to have a house here!
James is a great travel companion although we both snore a lot. We have our differences. He sees me as unique and creative, thinking out of the box. however, we both agreed that "Maximilian" makes a good name for our sons, if we had one. I enjoyed all the conversation we had and the time together.