Advice on Skiing Europe
Richard Harrowell
On Tue, 02 Sep 1997 19:51:49 +1000, Shane Huntley <s-hu...@adfa.oz.au> wrote:
>I have followed the recent thread about skiing America with interrest
>and I was wondering if anyone had advice on where to find somewhere to
>ski in Europe.
>
>The situation is I will be backpacking around England France Germany
>Austria Italy this Dec/Jan and am considering skiing while over there
>for 5 days or so. Anyone know of somewhere worth skiing which won't
>send me utterly bankrupt?
>
>Shane
Shane,
I have skied in France (my favourite), Switzerland and Austria. I haven't tried
Italy or Germany yet.
A lot depends here on your standard, are you travelling alone or in a group,
and do you peak a little of any other languages.
If you are alone, you can often find economical accommodation at Pensionen.
Even at the best resorts like St Anton, I had no trouble at getting single
accommodation at about $27 a day in 1994. At Kitzbuhel, rooms in private
houses were available for about $17 a day. At the top resorts, a 5 day pass
was around $173, but you can also go to an area like the Wilder Kaiser -
Brixental Skiwelt (90 lifts including 6 gondola's) and get very cheap
accommodation and a 5 day pass for about $120. There were also some Australians
who spent the season around Sheffau.
Austria is great because many of the resorts are on the train line which makes
getting there easy.
If you go to Austria, make it as late as possible (unless they get early snow),
and St Anton/Lech will have the best early snow because of its altitude. The
6th of January is the National holiday, so stay away between Christmas till
after the 6th.
The killer in Austria (and everywhere else in Europe now) is the price of food
and a cup of coffee. All you will get for breakfast is a couple of rolls and
coffee (a glass of orange juice if you are very lucky). If you eat at
restaurants and get lunch on the mountain, it is not hard to spend more on food
and drink than accommodation and lifts. The only way to do it cheaply is to buy
food at the local supermarket at the resort and take it with you while you are
skiing.
If you are in a group, you can often ski very cheaply in France if you rent an
apartment and share. You may need your own towel, and if you need to rent
sheets for the bed (often not included at the cheap places), you will need some
ID to leave (an international drivers license worked great).
Again buy your own food - for lunch you get some tomato, some Jambon Fume
(proscuitto) and a baguette along with some poppers and your have a feast.
If the top resorts like Val D'Isere or Le Trois Vallees are too rich, there are
other magnificent resort to go to like the Grand Massif complex. Le Carroz is
not to bad a place to stay there, and your pass will be good for Flaine where
you can find heaps of English tourists ( if you get desperate). Accommodation
and lift tickets were cheap. Some of the instructors there are qualified
mountain guides, and you may be able to organise a day trip skiing the glaciers
on Mont Blanc if you are a good skier. The beauty of the Grand Massif region is
that when I was there, the local French religiously stuck to the pistes, so
after a snow fall, there were days of skiing untracked powder. By comparison,
at St Anton, everyone skis off piste (seems that way).
One thing you have to watch with skiing in Europe is that their idea of safety
is different from Australia and the US. I met an Austrian lady who had twice
been in avalanches (with fatalities) while in ski classes. There is no
guarantee that barriers will be up to stop you skiing over a cliff. On one 4
week trip to France, I saw a dual hangglider fall out of the sky at Meribel,
and while I was skiing at Flaine, an Englishman went under a barrier in a fog
and skied off a 50 meter cliff onto rocks (I think the rocks were not damaged
too much), and another lady skied into a 200 meter sink hole. (The bedrock
there is limestone and it has been twisted vertically so all the caves are
vertical, not horizontal. There were no barriers to stop anyone skiing into
these holes) The story is that in Europe look after your own safety - do not
assume others are doing it for you.
On this point, you must have travel insurance and read all that fine print
carefully - you might find that if you are in any guided group (like a ski
class), you are not covered for insurance.
To get information, go to the tourist offices for the various countries and get
all the accommodation tariff information. If you book something, do it
yourself - do not book at the Australian Ski travel agents. I was able to book
at a pensionen in Austria by phone without any deposit. There is usually a
central booking office at each resort that can tell you where the vacancies are.
You can then ring a specific place (if it is a pensionen or a house) to make
arrangements. The key thing is to ring to let them know you are coming and at
what time, and definitely ring if you are arriving late.
Outside of the Christmas/New Year period, there is usually lots of vacancies in
December and early/mid January, so you can always find something.
There is also a huge amount of Ski resort info on the Internet. My file with all
the addresses got corrupted, so you will have to look for yourself.
Hope that helps
Rick.