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TR: Bad Gastein in Austria, week 5 2008

astridhj

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I booked my trip to Austria back in early September before snow even had started to fall, but it's a yearly tradition to go to the Alps, and they usually have good snow, and Norway has had some bad winters lately. But the day before we left, the weather forecast promised about two meters powder in Norway and none in Bad Gastein, and I was a little bit sad about the news. But then again, Bad Gastein is a spa town, so I could always take some time to go to the spa, if the skiing was too bad.

The trip started badly with the airplane company leaving my skis in Bergen, and I had to rent skis for two days before my Auras made it to Austria. Sunday started with a heavy wind, and it started to snow pretty bad during the afternoon. We also had close to no visibility. Some of the cable cars got closed, so we didn't get to ski the whole resort the first day. There was only man made snow in the valley, so we had to take the cable car down again to the city. Bad Gastein had only two colours on their pistes. Red and Blue. Red meant steep, and blue meant walking, or close to it.

Monday was powder and nice weather, and we could actually see where we had skied yesterday. The view was really nice. Skied some powder, but was just wishing for my Auras.

Tuesday we were skiing in Sportgastein. Hardpack, steep and good skiing, before the moguls got to bad. Nice to really test my Auras when skiing hardpack really fast. Sportgastein also had an interesting way of marking their pistes. We skied down to the bottom on a red run, and that has to be one of the steepest pistes I've ever skied. No way that one was a red. There was some offpiste in the bottom, but pretty steep, and I do not ski powder alone, so not much powder for me that day. In the afternoon I went to the thermal baths, and I had spa :becky:

Wednesday was Dorfgastein. This was a more real austrian village, and the resort was better than Bad Gastein. The powder was good, the hills were good, and we had a really good day here. In the afternoon, the ladies went to the thermal baths, and we had ice cream while in our bikinis.

Thursday was the day for sightseeing. :ski2: We skied from the Alpendorf resort to the Flachau resort, and had a whole afternoon of only offpiste skiing. A really good day. And at the end of the day we had some real Austrian after-ski, before we took the 70 mins long taxi ride home.

Friday was back to Dorfgastein again for me.

Saturday was time to go home, and again the skis didn't get on the plane. This time it took three days before I got them.

So what have I learned from this trip?

- I need new boots, so when I got money I will travel to see a bootfitter to get some proper boots. My boots were killing me the whole time, and I didn't enjoy the skiing as much as I would have with proper boots.
- I like it better in the real Austrian towns instead of a town where there is only tourists. Also a resort with lots of chair lifts instead of all the cable cars.
- Austrian food is mostly pig and french fries. And of course soups. But the ice cream is very good :becky:

And of course, it's always good with a glühwein to get the warmth back.

PS. Will try to put up some pics later on.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
Well remember those good days and lost luggage is part of travelling. There is nothing like skiing in March and getting your skis finally in July!! And I thought that the italians made the best ice cream??
 

MaineSkiLady

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
This sounds like it was lovely trip, even if you did have to leave behind all the snow in Norway (is the snow still good at home?). A ski trip with friends is always great! As for the skis and luggage, this seems to be a problem all over the world now :( Well, you finally did get them, and the skis did finally come home! So this is a good thing. (Where do all these lost things go?)
 

astridhj

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Jilly: Italians have the best ice cream, but the Austrians have the best things to go with the ice cream. Their favourite, and mine, is heisse liebe = hot love, which is vanilla ice cream with hot raspberries on top :becky:

MSL: I had a good time. And as for snow in Norway. The reports tells us that no other place in Europe has as much snow as we have this year. One resort tells us about 390 cm of snow in the pistes and the same in the terrain :snow:
 

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