The charming little ski resort of Kühtai
Seduced by ski
Brian Johnston heads to the Austrian city of Innsbruck, where he finds urban culture blending beautifully with an extraordinary variety of ski slopes.
If you’ve ever imagined designing the ideal city, take a research trip to Innsbruck. This compact Austrian gem is exactly what cities should be: neither too big nor too small, set alongside a river and surrounded by mountains. Buildings burst with baroque curlicues; medieval signs dangle. A university lends the town youthful energy, a proud imperial history gives it the requisite glamour and pastry shops lure all comers with luscious cream pies. The town’s tidy, Austrian air couples delightfully with the influence of nearby Italy: it’s la dolce vita without the chaos.
In short, Innsbruck is a city so charming that surely, its inhabitants have little to complain about. Certainly, the locals have rosy cheeks from the alpine weather, ready smiles and an invigorating fondness for their hometown. Even in winter – not a season that favours most European cities – cheerfulness is the order of the day and Innsbruck shines.
Off-piste skiing
For visitors, there’s much to recommend Innsbruck in the depths of winter. Without summer’s crowds, museums are more spacious; back alleys are atmospheric, even magical in the moonlight; and shops and hotels are decked out in all their Christmas finery. In the streets of the old town, Christmas trees glimmer with golden lights; lampposts sport little caps of snow and snowflakes spiral into the light, creating what looks like magical snow domes.
But enough about Innsbruck and its winter-wonderland charm: really, the best thing about the place is escaping into its extraordinary environs. Snow-clad mountains and glorious landscapes beckon from every side, and getting to them is as simple as hopping on the funicular railway or on buses that depart from the city centre. In a matter of minutes, you’re out of town; in 20 or so, you can be cavorting in the Alps like Julie Andrews and her warbling movie-stepchildren. And here in the mountains, you’ll find a myriad things to do: breathtaking vantage points and bracing walks, an array of novel winter sports for the adventurous and, naturally, skiing and snowboarding options galore.
Let’s start with winter panoramas: get the best views of the city from high-altitude Hungerberg or from the top of the Bergisel, a thoroughly modern ski-jump with an observation deck and restaurant at its summit. After all, an exceptional view deserves to be accompanied by coffee and ridiculous Austrian pastries, piled with ziggurats of cream.
One of the delightful villages in the mountains above Innsbruck
If you’re around in late January and early February, the Billabong Air & Style competition at Bergisel Stadium is a world-class event and a must-see: watch incredible athletes risk their necks to soar in the sky, the Alps and Innsbruck a dazzling backdrop to the action. There are also eight cable-cars in the region, affording dramatic outlooks over the Inn Valley, the city and the mountains that envelop it. The best of them, perhaps, is the newest: the Hungerbergbahn-Nordkette cable-car, with its daring ascent to the Hafelekar summit at 2,334 metres and outstanding contemporary structure.
Few visitors will be content with merely looking, however. Fortunately, there are numerous easy ways to get out into the mountains and indulge in winter activities. The local tourist office offers free snowshoeing tours: these are a good introduction to trekking through virgin snow, the trees overhead sporting epaulettes of sparkling ice. Cross-country skiing brings you into similar territory, and the rolling plateau above Innsbruck, around the villages of Igls, Mutters or Birgitz, is ideal for the sport.
It’s a sign of the efficiency of Innsbruck’s tourism infrastructure that the city also helps out here, providing free shuttle buses from Innsbruck to cross-country skiing zones in the surrounding hills – and back again, of course, at the point where your legs give out and your spirit gives in to a rewarding hot bath and a snifter of brandy.
The Christmas market in Innsbruck's old town
Snowshoeing and cross-country skiing are all very well but if you feel the need for speed, you might want to try the crazy but exhilarating ‘sport’ of wok riding. The Original Wok Race, a spin-off of the World Wok Racing Championships developed by German TV personality Stefan Raab, will run in Innsbruck from late December 2009 to February 2010. Groups of 20 or more can rock the wok by hurling themselves downhill for 1,270 icy metres along the Innsbruck-Igls Olympic bobsled run. The fun starts while you’re getting ready: the protective clothing provided consists of authentic ice-hockey outfits, complete with helmets – just the thing you’ll need if you want to try and break the 100-kilometres-per-hour track record.
The main activities in the mountains are, of course, skiing and snowboarding. Nine ski regions, known collectively as Olympia SkiWorld Innsbruck, envelop the city, offering 285 kilometres of runs and 80 mountain railways and lifts. It’s no wonder the locals keep smiling right through winter: all these sunny ski slopes are less than an hour out of town, and a skier can move easily from one resort to the next using the same Innsbruck Gletscher Skipass.
Visitors can also make use of the Club Innsbruck Card, which you acquire get simply by spending a night at any city hotel. This handy card offers you discounts on ski tickets and entrance to Innsbruck sights and attractions, free lantern-lit hikes and even free childcare at the ski resorts of Kühtai and Igls.
Rediscovering the inner child in the hills above Innsbruck
More evidence of how well-organised ski tourism is hereabouts: the Innsbruck region has 20 designated ski hotels offering special ski packages, bookable through certain Australian travel agents, that include complimentary shuttle-bus rides to and from nearby ski resorts. A one-night stay comes with a two-day ski pass for the region; a seven-night stay scores you a six-day pass.
The Skipackage Olympia SkiWorld Innsbruck includes access to all nine skiing areas in the vicinity of Innsbruck and nearby Stubai Glacier. Another option is the Super Skipackage Olympia SkiWorld Innsbruck, which includes day-trips to the ski resorts that put Tyrol on the world map: Kitzbühel and the Arlberg region (St Anton). This can be a very cost-effective way to ski: a package incorporating seven nights’ accommodation in a four-star hotel with half board and a six-day ski pass, for example, starts from just 632 euros per person.
One thing is certain: with such a variety of ski resorts close by, skiers and snowboarders are spoilt for choice. You can swoosh past great, tumbling glaciers or through forests of pine, in which snow glints on the trees and falls in explosive little puffs as you speed past. And as a great many of the slopes lie well above the tree line, you get superb views of the Alps and Inn Valley from ski-fields.
Admiring the slopes from a terrace at Kühtai
In general, skiing in the region is best for intermediate-level skiers but there are a few seriously challenging runs to lure advanced skiers to the slopes, such as the daring runs at Hafelekar and Axamer Lizum, as well as those on the Stubai Glacier. At Patscherkofel, there are some good mogul runs, and a newish chairlift, offering dazzling scenery on the ascent, lets you to follow the renowned downhill Olympic run that was created here in 1972.
Patscherkofel has a range of slopes, making this a good place to head if you’re with your family with varying expertise. What’s more, it’s just 20 minutes’ out of town.
Beginners will find no lack of gentle runs: there are 26 designated ‘green runs’ (beginners’ trails) in the region, and Mutter Alm and Igls have excellent ski schools. The little resort of Kühtai is also good for families and skiers looking for a delightful day’s skiing without challenges. At just over 2,000 metres, this is Austria’s highest ski resort. There are just 13 lifts but you could spend a happy day here, swooshing down the well-groomed slopes and kicking back for lunch at the Jagdschloss, where you may find the silver-haired owner, a great-grandson of the last Austrian emperor, in his trademark blazer.
Innsbruck’s ski region is also mighty fine for snowboarders. At Stubai Glacier, runs are set aside just for them. Stubai also has a variety of rails and jumps as well as a race-track, a training run, and snowpark and funway at Axamer Lizum, created just a few years ago and hugely popular with young boarders. Best is the steep-walled Gun Barrel half-pipe, which runs for two-and-a-half kilometres and has walls of up to 10 metres in height.
Icicles on a chalet in Igls
Innsbruck is especially energetic in March, when it hosts the annual Innsbruck Extreme, a world-quality snowboarding competition that showcases the skills of some of the best boarders in the business.
Whether you ski or board, and whichever resorts you resort to, one thing is certain: by late afternoon you’ll be back in downtown Innsbruck, a fully-fledged city offering world-class theatre, concerts and fine dining and some lively nightlife. It adds a whole new dimension to après ski and is yet more evidence to suggest that this could be the perfect little city.
Photography by Brian Johnston and Austrian National Tourist Office
Travel Facts
Getting there
Getting around
Where to stay
- Hilton Innsbruck is attached to the casino and is a short walk from the centre of town. Phone +43 512 59350 or visit www.innsbruck.hilton.com
- Hotel Grauer Bär is a good mid-range hotel adjacent to the old town.
- Phone +43 512 59240 or visit www.innsbruck-hotels.at
- Sporthotel Igls is an unpretentious hotel in a village setting, with terrific buffet breakfasts. Phone +43 512 377241 or visit www.sporthotel-igls.com
Further information
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