Travel Guides: All Countries / Europe / Austria
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| | | | Healthy Austria - it's a gas
There's one corner of Europe so impossibly clean-living, you have to go there to believe it.
Bad Hofgastein is in Austria, a 90-minute drive from Salzburg in a lovely green valley with churning streams and orderly waterfalls that cascade prettily from the mountains. The air is so sharp, even in summer, that it stings the nose and inhaling it gives you a wonderful energy boost.
The town is ideal for singles, couples and families who want an outdoor holiday fairly close to home in a quiet, unspoilt setting.
As a 32-year-old, arriving was like stepping onto the set of the '80s movie Cocoon, which stars a community of near-death OAPs who suddenly grow perky after discovering a miracle cure for ageing. Few people in sight, barring shop and hotel staff, were under 50 and most were far older.
In winter it is a low-key ski resort. In summer seniors go there for their health, and in this corner of Austria they take "wellness" very seriously indeed.
There are no midnight revellers shouting outside rowdy bars and no blaring music. It is a quiet place where the entire population, visitors and all, appears to go to bed by 10pm, and that takes into account going out for dinner and drinks.
By day, the Gastein valley in Salzburg province is a sweet shop of choice for health junkies of all abilities.
From Dorfgastein take a cable car to Fulseck where there's an invigorating three-hour trek across snow-topped hills that gives you a Zen-like feeling of balance.
The views on a clear day are gorgeous, patchwork hills and wooden chalets, and you honestly do sense the energy flow.
Mountain bikes are free to use for guests at four-star Hotel Osterreichischer Hof in Bad Hofgastein. The valley is largely flat with barely any traffic to negotiate. In two hours, a leafy route along the town's river passes a farm selling milk fresh from the udder, muddy pink pigs, fields of munching cows and banks of wild flowers.
Nothing in life, unless perhaps you were a miner, prepares you for the oddity that is Badgastein's main attraction.
The Gastein Heilstollen is a "curative" tunnel that by some quirk of nature contains pockets of apparently safe radon gas and caverns warmed by the subterranean flow of the valley's thermal spring.
A thriving health clinic has grown up around it. After a heart and blood pressure check by a very young doctor in a T-shirt, you brave the tunnel.
Wearing a swimsuit (or in the case of the Austrians, nothing) under a towel robe and slippers issued on arrival, you enter the tunnel in a yellow train driven by a man wearing tight swimming shorts and nothing else.
Passengers include the terminally ill and sprightly-looking pensioners taking a GP-approved course of radon exposure.
The 2.5km ride into the belly of the mountain is hot and oppressive, but sweating buckets for an hour while you lie alone, light-headed, on a wooden bench in a dark and musty cavern while a kindly doctor in teeny trunks periodically checks your pulse is plain weird. Throughout the entire experience talking is banned. The end is a blessed relief.
Your reward for all that discomfort is a sleep-inducing recuperative lie down on starched white sheets in a silent dormitory, with mesmerising views of waterfalls, empty green hills and clean sky.
Travel Guide: Austria
Take the high and winding road
It took five years to build, it costs 26 euros to use and it can take far too much energy to get up, but it is one of the world's most impressive passes.
The Grossglockner Road winds up through some of Austria's most stunning scenery and peaks at its tallest mountain.
You can walk, you can cycle, you can drive or be driven, but if you want to be king of the road, this has got to be one of the best places in the world.
Since Roman times, traders have traversed the eastern Alps - Austria's highest mountain range - to buy and sell goods in neighbouring Italy.
In 1930, work began to build an Alpine highway. It took 3,200 workers five years to complete the Hochalpenstrasse.
Today, more than a million people a year experience the drive up the Grossglockner Road, making it Austria's second-largest tourist attraction.
Driving up the Glockner highway's 48 hairpin bends can leave you feeling slightly nauseous in a coach.
That queasy feeling is transformed into a gnawing guilt when you watch the swarms of cyclists you're overtaking.
It's an arduous climb, but one undertaken by thousands of cyclists and motorcyclists each year on their way to the stunning views of the Grossglockner mountain and the Pasterze glacier.
If you haven't exercised to get up the Grossglocker Road, there's still quite a climb at the top to the Kaiser Franz Josefs Hohe museum. Or take the rickety steps down to the base of the glacier - a walk that gets further each year as the glacier recedes.
Travel Guide: Austria
The hills are alive
From the Daily Mail
The windows of the hotel were thrown open so that we could hear and see - how kind! - the band march past in the little Austrian Alpine town of Lofer, 30 miles south west of Salzburg.
There they went, down the main street, decked out in blue stockings, red garters, little brown coats and tall, brimmed hats - as if Ken Dodd had released his Diddymen into the mountains.
Evening brass band concerts are what pass for entertainment in these parts, though if you've spent all day hiking through the Alpine meadows, you may be too tired to put up much resistance.
Salzburgerland - the province of Salzburg - is an increasingly popular holiday destination for the British, now helped by direct flights with Ryanair from London Stansted.
Numbers are fairly evenly split between those who come in winter for the skiing, and the summer visitors who are here to enjoy the great outdoors.
They're all in good company, too, since the British Olympic Association has established a permanent training camp just outside Lofer.
Visitors can enjoy the stunning scenery while avoiding much of the hard work, thanks to a seven-day 'hiking without luggage' tour in the Saalach Valley, one of the nicest hiking areas in the Alps.
Travel Guide: Austria
Lots to do all year around
Sitting in the wide valley of the river Traun, this small town is surrounded by great mountains.
The small Muhlbach stream winds through the town with its many wooden piers, great for doing the odd spot of wading in the hot summer days.
There always seems to be something going on: mostly traditionaly Austrian folk festivals.
There are many good and cheap places to eat - all local delicacies too.
In winter the brilliant ski area of Dachstein-West is just a 15 minute drive away, starting from the village of Gosau.
Travel Guide: Austria
Summer snow and part-time pros
From Teletext
If your mates aren't offering you the snowboarding competition you crave, maybe it's time to hang with the pros.
Every May an eclectic mix of pro boarders, industry journalists and distributors meet on a glacier in the Alps to assess what's hot and what's not for the coming winter.
The organisers are now hoping to lure a limited number of amateurs to the event so they too can offer their verdicts.
The summer snowboarding test is held on the Hintertux Glacier, Austria, and is organized by Document Snowboard magazine.
Hitting the slopes in the summer may sound optimistic but the glacier is a popular skiing resort 365 days a year.
The snow is surprisingly good, although it can get slushy later in the day. Heavy fresh falls are not uncommon over the summer, just don't count on them.
The number of runs on the glacier is limited but normally hits two figures, with intermediate ones the most common.
For the more experienced or ambitious boarder, the glacier also offers a snow fun park, with two half-pipes where you can perfect a few freestyle moves.
There are more than a hundred boards and plenty of bindings to choose from at the event. Take your pick, mix and match, then head up the slopes.
In return for the right to ride a bewildering variety of boards, from jibbers to swallow tails, you are expected to jot down a few comments about the equipment on a review card. The range of boots is more limited, so you might want to take your own.
Travel Guide: Austria
Living the Hohe life
High up in Austria's eastern Alps lies the beautiful and peaceful Rauris Valley. Chances are you didn't know that.
Nor that it lies within the Hohe Tauern national park - the largest national park in the Alps.
Why the region remains so little visited by the Brits comes as something of a surprise when you consider it's only 90km from Salzburg - Mozart's birthplace and a huge attraction for tourists. It's even more of a shock when you see it and realise that it more than rivals its more expensive neighbour Switzerland.
But the fact that Rauris isn't modelled for British tourists means you feel as if you're holidaying in someone's backyard, rather than a quaint Austria-themed resort. That said, the village of Rauris is a complete chocolate box to look at. Local children must learn to plant window-boxes with the same fervour that British ones tackle Gameboy. Every house is strewn with geraniums, and even in late September, when the alpine flowers have receded, the view from your hotel will be one of riotous colour.
Buildings have been built, renovated or maintained to be sympathetic to the past - a past residents are particularly proud of.
The region is historically rich - literally and figuratively. Until the discovery of the Klondike mines, most of the world's gold was mined in Rauris.
"Our gold mining history is very important," says Marion Reschreiter from the Rauris Tourist Office. "You can still visit the 15th-century stone houses that the miners lived in."
Treks up to the craggy peaks where the miners struggled to extract the precious nuggets are fascinating and worth it for the awesome views alone.
The valley's former glory explains the presence of a stunning gothic church, which at first seems a towering overstatement for a village of just 3,000 people. Now Rauris welcomes another 3,000 tourists each year - tourism is the new avenue being mined.
Travel Guide: Austria
How green was my chalet
From the Mail on Sunday
As a self confessed holiday romantic, I always feel better in a hotel where the bed sports a depression the size of a glacial valley, the plumbing makes whale music through the night and greasy net curtains blow into the room.
This is after I have wrestled with the shutter opening traption. (It will grip on that bit in the middle and hold the whole thing shut if I can just get it into the little hole at the bottom.) Badgastein promised much. It was a spa in the Austrian Alps, in the business of fleecing tourists since hot water and excessive wind were first linked. Salzburg was just down the road.
My appetite for an Out Of Date Room With A View Nostalgia Rush was whetted.
You can fly into Salzburg from London with Lauda Airlines. We would have, too, but the Salzburg Festival was on and we flew to Munich instead. This meant a drive along the fabled German autobahn system. I felt I needed a fabled German superwagon to drive in.
'I ordered something with a bit of oomph!' I explained at the car rental. 'This is not what I ordered.' 'This is what you ordered.' The car rental man flourished a piece of paper. 'Well, then, it must have been ordered wrong. I would like to change for another.' con 'No.' 'Do you want to check whether there are any other cars available?' 'I do not need to check because this is the car that you are having.' This was a difficult moment.
Whether or not he was obeying orders, I had no intention of obeying my own orders. This is not what British people do. And British people are nowhere more British than within the confines of an international airport.
'OK. No. That's all right. I will get another car.' His pale face registered no emotion. His cold steely eyes gazed passively at me from behind his rimless spectacles. 'But you have paid for this car you have ordered.' 'I don't care.' I walked away, my face burning.
Travel Guide: Austria
Skiing beat me - but I had a ball
Before I tried skiing, I thought I was reasonably fit. But it was the toughest exercise I have ever done, and the most technically difficult.
Just when I thought I had mastered one set of skills, we were shown another which would test every ounce of muscle strength and concentration.
It was also great fun. Austria is the perfect place to learn to ski, and not just because of its natural beauty.
Stepping into my skis in the beautiful town of Kirchdorf, I smugly wondered, 'How hard can it be?'
Stepping out of them some six hours later, I felt like I had been hit by a snow-plough. I was stiff, sore, and soaked through to the bone with sweat.
I had managed only the very basics of the sport - staying upright while moving down a slight hill - but everything about me was exhausted.
Before I started skiing I had sympathy for the person assigned to teach me; grace and coordination are not words my friends and family associate with me.
But Sepp, our Austrian ski instructor, had the enthusiasm which characterises talented, natural teachers and the patience of a saint.
He didn't mind constantly picking up my lumbering body from the ski slopes, and praised even the clumsiest of students.
I started to feel pretty talentless after just a short time on my skis. But what really sealed my sense of incompetence was the constant stream of Austrian six-year-olds whizzing past me without a care in the world.
Travel Guide: Austria
A cycling holiday in enticing Carinthia
From the Daily Mail
With a view from the hotel balcony of a lake shimmering in the sun, its shores fringed by wooded mountains, I felt a need to do nothing. But doing nothing was not on the itinerary. Picking up bicycles and setting out on a tour of Austria's lakeland, in the province of Carinthia, was.
On this beautiful morning the prospect seemed foolishly energetic. But then I didn't know how enticingly this land of 200 freshwater lakes would give up its secrets.
Accompanied by my wife and sons, Mark, 14, and 11-year-old Ross, I was to find that travelling the cycleways of Carinthia, mostly along river banks and lakesides, is the best way to get to know the country.
Little resorts border many of the lakes, even boasting nightclubs and a casino, but with only the merest smattering of brashness. Our tour started at the village of Oberdrauburg, the route alongside the River Drau taking in the towns of Greifenburg, Spittal, Paternion and Villach.
But we soon discovered that the special element of seeing Carinthia from a bike was not so much sightseeing at each evening's destination as getting to know an Austria away from main roads.
We were in a world where attractions were not listed in a guidebook and where we would be constantly stopping whenever something took our eye - a waterfall, a remote farmhouse selling home-made products. Sometimes the Ratweg - the cycle-way - would veer away from the river and forge through head-high corn. Elsewhere it would run alongside a railway line.
This is handy, because such cycle tours are linked to the Austrian railway system. You can pick up bikes at selected stations and drop them off at others, or some services take them on the train.
In peak condition
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| | | | Then come the cakes and ale
More fun than Badgastein's medicinal radon tunnel (a proven cure, doctors report, for a string of respiratory conditions and arthritis) is Bad Hofgastein's impressive thermal Alpine Spa centre.
In typically Austrian fashion, the sprawling new facility is immaculately kept and operated with business-like efficiency.
Beauty rooms are clinically bare - there are no candles or petals strewn on beds here - but from 20 euros (£13) you get an excellent massage and all-over body cream treatments that soften the skin for days.
Nudity is the norm in Austrian spas. A sign for the mixed-gender "nude zone" in Alpine Spa centre warns you of what to expect. Nobody comes to confiscate your swimsuit but if you keep it on expect strange looks from the naked.
Outdoors, in broad daylight, is a warmish pool surrounded by snowy mountains. As a prudish Brit, having to strip off even a bikini top and sidle, exposed, into a pool with nude strangers was traumatic. But that soak, in that setting, was unforgettably relaxing.
Austrians believe in making healthy pursuits accessible to all, so the Alpine Spa Centre is very affordable - about £13 for a day's visit.
Between the radon tunnel, spa and time outdoors in glorious fresh air your skin will never glow more beautifully or your body feel as well for as long than after a Gastein visit.
If toxins are craved there's always local Stiegl beer and divine Austrian cakes, but the region's hearty, simple organic cuisine - served no better than at Schmaranz, a cosy family-run bio beer brewery in Bad Hofgastein - ensures good health, too.
Packages and prices:
- Crystal Lakes And Mountains (0870 160 6040) has a week's half-board holiday in Bad Hofgastein at Hotel Osterreichischer Hof from £465, with spa entry.
- At Schmaranz, a typically Austrian dish of bauernbratl (braised pork, beef, potatoes and dumplings in a delicious rich gravy cooked in a huge skillet over an open fire) costs about 13 euros (£8) per person.
- Guided tours of Salzburg from Bad Hofgastein are £20.
The perfect place to test drive new cars
A glimpse of the imposing Grossglockner mountain is often obscured by cloud and you might have to make do with the massive Pasterze Glacier.
However, both can be eclipsed by visions of bizarre plastic-coated cars flashing past you on the drive.
The long, continuous ascent makes it the perfect place for car manufacturers to test drive their latest models, most of which will be disguised for secrecy.
A drive up the 30-mile Grossglockner Road is an essential part of a visit to Austria's Salzburgerland.
If you don't have your own transport, coach trips can be arranged from most of the surrounding towns, or you can take the postal bus from Zell am See.
Your tour should include the essential maintenance fee for using the road, which remains closed for five months a year.
If driving up and down Austria's highest mountain road seems too dull and walking up and down it sounds too daunting, then take the middle option.
Lots of tours will drive you to the top to photograph the Grossglockner mountain, then drop you halfway down.
And a long walk back to your village is the perfect way to appreciate the true beauty of the mountains without working up too much of a sweat.
A refreshing wheat beer
Accomodation each night is in pre-booked, secluded mountain lodges or valley guest houses; every morning your bags are driven to the next destination while you get the map out and follow the day's route at your own pace.
What to wear on the mountains? The locals favour checked pinafore dresses, lederhosen, felt hats with feathers, long shorts, very short shorts, lace-up boots, neckerchiefs, braces and leather sandals. It's a bit like gatecrashing an convention for The Sound Of Music, especially when you spot - honestly - high on a hill, a lonely goat herd.
The scenery can't be faulted. Lofer itself - where the tour starts and finishes - is a pristine town of steep-roofed buildings, ringed by mountains.
Cherubs and heraldic shields are painted on the house facades, and the church has its foundation date - 1737 - stencilled in a flowery hand on its white tower.
Outside town, pastures and meadows spread up the mountainsides. There are dizzying views en route, as well as diversions to caves and - a Salzburgerland speciality - some dramatic gorges.
You hike through both the Seisenberg and Vorderkaser gorges wooden walkways wedged into the clefts. At Lamprechtshohle, more than 30 miles of tunnels extend into the mountains.
Anyone wanting to stretch themselves can opt for one of the alternative routes offered each day, taking you over a local peak instead of sticking to the valleys.
At day's end it's time for a refreshing wheat beer on the terrace of your mountain inn. There's no great luxury on offer, but the beds are comfortable and you get your own bathroom - all you have to do is unpack.
TRAVEL FACTS:
Ryanair has two flights daily from London Stansted to Salzburg. Call: 0870 156 9569; website: http://www.ryanair.com. Information from Salzburger Saalachtal Tourist Office (tel: 00-43-6588 8321; website: http://www.lofer.com). Or contact the Austrian National Tourist Office on: 020-7629 0461; website: http://www.austria-tourism.at.
Go drinking in Scotland Yard
The nearest town to the glacier is Mayrhofen. A 40-minute bus ride away, the town is a popular skiing resort itself during the winter months.
In summer, the cable cars still work, but hikers fill them, heading up to enjoy the many walks that criss-cross the surrounding mountains.
Mountain bikers also flock to the area and there are plenty of places to hire a bike for the day.
Popular with English tourists, Mayrhofen even has its own Scotland Yard - thankfully a local pub rather than a police station.
It's a popular evening hang-out for those involved in the snowboard event.
So, if the pros beat you hands down on the slopes, in the pub there's always the chance you might have better luck against them on the pool table or the dart board. What about dominoes then?
Where is it? Mayrhofen lies in the Zillertal Valley, southern Austria.
Who goes there? Boarders who know their freestyle from freeride.
Not suitable for: Beginners.
Sample price: Return flights, half-board stay in three-star hotel from £379. Pass to snowboard test £99.
Contact number: Thomson 08760 6061470
Mountains of hearty food
The relative lack of English-speaking visitors to Rauris has its impact. Most museums, sight-seeing information and, particularly, menus aren't targeted at non-native speakers.
Not only are most menus written solely in German, but the food is typical hearty mountain stuff. Main courses are traditionally gamey - don't be surprised to see red deer and chamois on the menu. Desserts are equally heavy affairs, with Kaiserschmarrn (the regional pancake) and apple strudel on every menu.
Vegetarians will be catered for at hotels, but shouldn't expect too much choice at smaller restaurants.
The convivial restaurateurs will convince you that a couple of schnapps are necessary to open your digestive system and the only way to end a meal. Although you may not be convinced, you will find it hard to refuse.
An after-dinner schnapps or perhaps a trip to the schnapps distillery (where you can try 17 different kinds if you have the stomach for it) is about as rowdy as the Rauris nightlife gets.
It's not aimed towards those looking for late nights and lager. As with most other mountainous Austrian resorts, the serious drinking only really takes place in the ski season.
With only an hour-and-a-half's transfer time from Salzburg and a new gondola in place, it shouldn't be long before the British skiers discover this charming Alpine resort.
Locals love their lederhosen
There were at least ten other car rental desks at Munich Airport. I made repeated and insistent enquiries in a low tone but, would you believe it, none of them had a car for hire. My wife Jo and son George watched me impassively. I turned away. The man in the rimless specs watched me. Some ten minutes had passed. I walked back to his desk.
'Yeah. I'd better take that car then.' Wordlessly he filled in the form and I handed across my driving licence. It rained continuously all the way to Salzburg.
Salzburg was convulsed with its music festival. A not very festive crowd queued for cafe seats and trudged the streets. It is the sort of place where you end up seeing the other tourists rather than the place itself. We aquaplaned on up the mountains.
What is it about mountains that encourages fancy dress? Get halfway up the Scottish Highlands and out come the kilts and the gaiters and those absurd tweed helmets. In Tibet: saffron robes and a comical lampshade hat.
And in Austria everybody insists on parading about in lederhosen and a silly little shrunken fedora stuck on their bonce.
Scenery? What scenery?
While I was actually learning to ski, I must admit I didn't really take in much scenery - my eyes were fixed in panic on the end of my skis.
But walking to and from the slopes and during our breaks, I found myself surrounded by classic wintry, European mountain scenes.
Deep snow covered the ground, wooden houses peeked out from beneath the white and the sky was a spotless blue.
Like most apprentice skiers, I had more skill lifting the beer stein during the apres-ski than I did on the slopes.
It was refreshing to experience a culture of drinking where the aim is not to wipe yourself out, but to celebrate the beauty and lifestyle your country has to offer.
In Tirol, the apres-ski seemed to cater for many ages, without being too boozy.
The region seems the perfect starting point for people who want to learn to ski.
A a short drive from Salzburg airport, Kirchdorf's ski school, where I learnt, has lots of room for beginners. It's also close to the stunning Steinplatte mountains, which cater for many different capabilities.
The Hotel Marienstetten in Kirchdorf is also comfortable and welcoming.
In the end, advancing past the very basics of skiing away from the beginners' slopes was beyond me.
On an open ski field, I was too scared to concentrate properly. But learning the sport was constantly exhilarating, and endlessly entertaining.
* Thomson is offering all-inclusive learn-to-ski holidays in the Tirol region of Austria starting from £375 per person. Telephone: 0870 606 1470.
System runs like clockwork
You can mix and match, going part of your route by train and picking up new bikes at another station. The rental service is available at 22 stations in Carinthia.
Your overnight hotel stops are pre-booked and your luggage taken on each day by train or taxi - no backpacking here, this is cycling the luxurious way.
The system runs like clockwork. Our bags were already in our rooms by the time we arrived at hotels each evening.
The River Drau cycle-way is nearly 150 miles long, with other cycle networks covering further hundreds of miles. You simply cycle the sections you fancy - or spend days on non-cycling outings as the whim takes you.
We headed on to the jewel of this lake district, the Worther See, which stretches from Klagenfurt to the resort of Velden, where grand houses have their own beaches. Time for a last diversion, to the Faaker See - where the peace was broken by the roar of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Harley lovers from all over the world were here for European Bike Week.
I looked longingly at the gleaming Harleys. But it wasn't time to give up pedal-power yet. I still had too many gears to try out.
Travel facts
Tour operators featuring packages to Carinthia include Thomson (0870 606 1470), Crystal (0870 848 7000), and Austria Travel (01708 222000). The Austrian National Tourist Office (020 7629 0461) has more information, and maps with suggested cycle routes. Bikes cost about £35 a week to rent. The Carinthian Hotline (0043 463 3000) gives advice on 'tailor-made' cycle trips and can book hotels for each stop with luggage sent on each day for a small charge.
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| | | | Rauris - a family affair
So, who will enjoy a holiday in Rauris? "It's a family destination," says Marion Reschreiter from the Rauris Tourist Office. "Or for people looking for silence and nature. It's not really for the younger crowd. More than 70% of our guests are families, and they tend to come in July and August."
Family is an integral part of Austrian life, says Anna Dear - an English rep who has worked in Austria for seven years. "You can see it everywhere. Every hotel and bar is family run. The most important thing is family and that extends to foreign families."
But she says parents should pick their hotels carefully. "They are much more tolerant about kids running around restaurants, but some are more geared to older people," she advises.
And there is certainly plenty for families to do, says Marion. "There's walking, climbing, horse-riding, cycling and gold digging! It's important for children to have fun, and there is plenty of adventure, so parents will be happy because the children are happy."
Also, as Anna stresses, normal life is more geared to children: "There is adventure, but there are also great little walks, outdoor swimming pools and even simple things like lots of good playgrounds."
For those without children, outside school holidays is a great time to visit. Marion says: "In September, the evenings may be cooler, but the days are still warm, and generally it's even drier than August."
Some hotels offer free bikes or you can hire them from the Intersport shops in the village from about £5 a day. Maps marking bike and hiking trails are free from the tourist office.
For only slightly less exertion, you can trek up the valley on horseback. After a day in either saddle, you'll be grateful for the saunas and steam rooms that most hotels offer.
The 30 and 40-somethings who end up here are sure to appreciate the valley's quiet charms. High up above the tree line with only a marmot and the soaring birds of prey for company, the hills are alive without the sound of traffic. You may be reluctant to make that long scramble back to the real world because you may simply be too relaxed - or saddle sore - to move.
FACTFILE: Crystal Lakes and Mountains has seven nights in Rauris at the Hotel Kristall from £379 including return flights, transfers and half-board. Departures from Cardiff and Bristol also available.
For reservations, call 0870 848 7000 or see the website at http://www.crystallakes.co.uk
Hummingbirds at the door
Austria at first sight is a vertical Christmas tree plantation. There are shaggy pines up the mountain and shaggy pines through the dale. This is shaggy pine country and the air smells as fresh as an air freshener.
I was taken aback to find they are a sort of weed. 'Nobody wants to work the valleys any more,' explained meine hostess, Frau Blumstein. 'The fields are uneconomic. So the pines creep gradually down the valley.'
The hotel, the Gruner Baum, aspires to be both a local landmark and a hidden gem, which makes it difficult to find. 'Everybody knows it,' they told me. But everybody spoke German.
It was not so much tucked away as three miles up a dirt track on a vertical cliff covered with shaggy pines. We discovered this of our own volition. We twice had to reverse our car down this cliff past startled climbers with mini pickaxes.
The Gruner Baum is certainly no mountain hut. It is a collection of mountain huts. At least seven or eight Austrian chalets are dotted around a private valley in inter-linked abandon. We had to cross a raging torrent on a little wooden bridge to get to our room in the Kasslerhaus.
As we arrived, a hummingbird dipped at one of the many hanging baskets. Yes, a hummingbird. In the lobby there was a big wooden carved bear. The bar had a muscular stone fireplace. Floors are polished and smooth, but so are the staff.
THEY were the real stars of this hotel. I have never felt such attentive interest, except possibly from my new labrador puppy. And they had more patience and were better at fetching things.
Their English was impeccable, their manner always charming and they were dressed in mountain clothes. They had sweet blue tweed jackets and frilly blouses - and that was only the men.
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| | | | Waterfalls and whipped cream
Long before England's romantic poets came to the Alps to wallow in the overpowering grandeur of Nature and when skiing was still an accident that happened to clumsy shepherds, the Hills of Badgastein were alive with the rumble of thermal springs. It was a summer resort then. Even Mozart's mother popped across to visit.
The rest of the town hugs the mountain slope. It ought to be charming but somehow isn't. A torrential cascade slices it in half and the roar of this waterfall drowns out the roar of the tourists.
The Gruner Baum hotel is at an advantage being some way outside the town.
It is linked by charming promenades through the shaggy pines where excessively polite Austrian red squirrels sit on stone walls and beg for nuts. I needed instantly to get up a mountain to see what I could see. We took the cable car.
During the summer, with no skiers, it only ran on the hour. So instead of waiting in a shuffling, banging winter queue we had to go to the station canteen and drink coffee and whipped cream.
Whipped cream is a cultural norm in Austria. There are whipped cream puddings and cakes with more whipped cream on them. The women even wear whipped cream shirts, poking out around their Alpine dresses.
Come November, just to be sure, the whole landscape is doused in whipped cream.
What is that exquisite feeling that accompanies visitors to out of season resorts? Futility?
We walked gingerly across the now unnecessary snow gratings and climbed rather too easily into the little bubble car, feeling bogus without skis to stick in the outside rack or boots to kick snow off. The restaurant at the summit was built to accommodate thousands of skiers. It was empty.
We sallied across an acre of varnished pine and into the canteen where the windows were blanked out by mist. We had hoped to rise above the clouds into the clear mountain air but, as so often in life, here we were, right in the middle of those clouds instead. An oompah band played Congratulations And Jubilations over the Tannoy.
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| | | | Hunting gear and vintage cars
The next day Herr Blumstein took us on a quick tour of the town in his vintage open top car. Everywhere, he hailed the local passers-by and when he wasn't hailing them he was blowing his trumpet. He had a hunting horn.
Periodically he would yank on his complicated brake system and stop in front of, say, the Fountain Franz Josef, and stand up in his driving seat to give us a quick blast. Sometimes he resorted to yodelling instead. Luckily he was dressed in an Alpine hunting outfit complete with a jaunty hat so there was nothing untoward about this.
'He is always hunting,' explained his wife that evening over dinner. 'I shot 40 chamois last year,' he said. In front of us was the haunch of a deer that had been unlucky, or deaf enough, not to hear Herr Blumstein coming.
As it arrived at the table Herr Blumstein jumped up and played a few more bars on his hunting horn. This was repeated for any customer who had also ordered game. He was a gifted musician and game was a house speciality. The hotel owns many acres of shaggy pine woods in which these deer and chamois wander freely; a reminder that, neat and ordered and full of old ladies though Badgastein itself may be, the mountains themselves are still wild and hairy.
The next morning we set off from the back of the hotel car park up the view from the bedroom window. It was well signposted and within 15 yards changed from nursery hillock to exciting mountain path. It tested the thigh muscles to breaking point.
We climbed through a carpet of Alpine plants which were all the better for not being in some old concrete cattle trough at the bottom of Alan Titchmarsh's garden.
After grappling our way upwards for nearly an hour, stepping aside breathlessly to allow old age pensioners and toddlers to overtake us, we arrived at a rustic bench and the realisation that we had not yet actually left the hotel's garden. A grinning gnome was painted on a nearby sign pointing upwards.
George looked out over the magnificent valley. Badgastein lay far below. 'I wish I was in Ipswich playing Necromunda,' he said putting a 14 year old's perspective on the view. We ignored him and stumbled down. I had an appointment in the hotel's ominous sounding Kur centre.
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| | | | Mud, mud glorious mud
Thirty minutes later I hobbled into the spa and apologised for not having changed. The girl in the white coat looked me up and down. 'It doesn't matter, you'll sweat anyway,' she said.
In front of me, two envelopes of black goo lay on a pristine couch. I was told to undress and lie down on them, face up. 'You have trouble with your back?' I bridled. 'Not particularly.' She shrugged. 'It is misshapen.
'I felt exposed enough, sitting stark naked in front of this Madchen in uniform, but I pulled back my shoulder blades while trying to protect my modesty with a six inch flannel masquerading as a towel. Two large flaps of plastic were then folded over the top of me.
Out of the corner of my eye could see that she was arranging another towel by the corner of my head. She placed a chain pull on it. 'That's the alarm,' she explained.
How was I supposed to free my arms in the event of the unspecified emergency? Naturally, I was too inhibited to ask. No doubt, there are those for whom skin scrapes, mud-baths and seaweed wraps are part of the daily grind.
They hop jauntily about, shoulders back, arms akimbo and towels cast aside in a freewheeling easygoing symbiosis with their starched uniformed masseuses. It was all a bit novel for me. I opted for an amused blankness.
'The mud comes from north Austria,' she explained. I nodded knowingly. (Aha! Mud. This was mud!) My studied insouciance took a knock, though, when she reached for a secret button and the table I was lying on dropped away from underneath me.
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| | | | Marinating in warm gravy
It left me floating in what felt like warm gravy. I tried hard to look as if this was the very thing I had been expecting. Then she dimmed the lights and left. 'I will come back in 20 minutes.' After five minutes I began to sweat. The sweat poured into the plastic wrapping. Now I was floating in my own sweat in a plastic mud wrap which was itself floating in something else of a suspect nature.
What was I supposed to do for 20 minutes? I was immobile and introspective, marinating in my own juices. How long had passed?
Was it really healthy for all this sweat to extrude out of me in this way? Would I be left a deflated Lilo when the 20 minutes were up? What if my skin failed to fit afterwards?
The only light in the room came from a shower. I lapsed into a morbid gloom. After a brisk and enthusiastic massage I was cast out into the corridors of the hotel clad only in a towel and minus my keys.
Alas, my Frau had gone for her own mud pack, so I strolled to reception, past old ladies coming back from their afternoon walks, waving nonchalantly and trying out my impersonation of someone used to wandering hotels in a towel.
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| | | | Stunning mountain landscapes
The following day, the sun shone and we ordered up a horse and carriage to explore further up the valley. Normally, I am deaf to the pleadings of my little ones to get aboard a pony and tourist trap.
Ten minutes behind a clapped out nag and you don't even get a doggie bag for the roses, and they encourage you to wave to lesser beings like some sort of minor royalty. But this was magical. The sheer orgasmic spectacle of the landscape engulfed us.
NO, but seriously, 'Coo!' is the only real response to such beauty. The road followed a mountain river between towering cliffs and lofty peaks. But it was the contrast that impressed.
Here, above us, was Nature in all its overpowering massiveness, but, wait, here at our feet it was Nature in all its exquisite miniatureness.
Beneath the lichen-clad alders was God's own patio and rockery feature. We trundled on for an hour or so, each corner revealing new, ever more startling vistas. And could there be a better vantage point to study the negative effect of high altitude on dress sense?
There were casual Italian bar owners in slacks and white shoes. Here's a sensible Pac-a-Mac couple, swathed from head to foot in opaque plastic, overtaking a fat man in black suede shorts and yellow knee socks.
Hoicked crotch huggers, lycra minivests and DayGlo trainers stalk alongside little old ladies seemingly on the hunt for more whipped cream. Brown knickerbockers, jaunty hats, sticks, single ski poles and a bewildering variety of sensible footwear confronted us as we wound betwixt the shaggy pines.
The one thing that all these people had grasped is that no matter how comfortable your hotel or how excellent the mud pack facilities, the real star of the Austrian Alps is the Alps themselves. If the weather is good, get out and yodel with the best of them.
You might even pack your kilt.
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