There’s always part of me that dreads the start of a ski holiday. Not because of the skiing (I adore that), but because of the journey. As a child it meant 16 hours in the middle seat jammed between brother and sister as we argued over who felt most car-sick. Nowadays it means faffy transfers and days off eaten up by travel.
This year, I decided to try something different: why not make the journey part of the holiday? Rather than undertaking a mammoth day’s travel, I would split it up with a break – a city break to be precise.
Austria immediately sprang to mind. Excellent skiing – naturally – and smaller than France and Italy (with more cultural caché than Switzerland), so resorts are bunched close to great cities. I considered the options and settled on Salzburg. It’s a destination that has always held a certain magic for me – conjuring up images of archdukes and duchesses waltzing through Baroque squares and Julie Andrews prancing about in old curtains.
For skiing, I opted for Leogang – around one hour’s drive away – firstly because it’s part of one of the largest connected ski resorts in the world (the local Ski Alpin Card gives you access to 408 km of piste – not bad considering the largest in the world, the Three Valleys in France, has 600 km or so), and secondly because I’d heard the resort is beloved by Austrians but relatively untouched by Brits. Now that’s my idea of ski heaven.
The city
Stepping into snowy Salzburg on the evening I arrived, I immediately felt like I’d made the right decision. It was just a 20-minute bus journey from the airport to the city, and from our base at the comfortable Hotel Wolf-Dietrich, everything was walkable.
Our first day began with a meander round the city’s Old Town (Altstadt) – one of Europe’s architectural gems. We headed first to Salzburg’s mighty cathedral (sadly too early for the regular lunchtime concert when you can hear the organs once played by Mozart), on the way passing bakeries offering half-metre logs of apple strudel.
After that we hit a buzzy farmers’ market on University Square (open daily except Sundays and public holidays). Locals slurped steaming bowls of stew while tourists munched giant cheese-stuffed pretzels. Next up was Getreidegasse, a charming (if quite touristy) shopping street with wrought iron and gold signs hanging over each boutique and a museum dedicated to Mozart.
We stopped for a brief cocktail (a refreshing vodka-cassis-orange number) at the stylish Hotel Goldener Hirsch before reaching the Mirabell Palace, where we wandered through the ornate Baroque pleasure gardens (free to the public). This was where the Sound of Music scene with Maria and the von Trapp children romping around to ‘Do Re Mi’ was shot (I managed to resist the temptation to do the same).
Our circuitous route took us up the icy Festungsberg hill, where there are pretty churches, an excellent museum of modern art, one of the biggest fully preserved castles in central Europe (the Hohensalzburg) and glorious views over Salzburg’s spires and the river Salzach. There was just time to descend and have a quick coffee at the cosy Röstzimmer roastery-café before our evening transfer to Leogang arrived. The day was a satisfying taste of Salzburg while also leaving me wanting to come back.
The skiing
After leaving Salzburg the car pulled up at our hotel, the Salzburger Hof in Leogang, in time for dinner (you can also get the train from Salzburg in two hours). Good job too because dinner here is a long affair: four courses, including an impressive salad bar with freshly baked bread, a counter with at least ten types of Alpine cheese and an ice cream bar complete with sprinkles and sauces.
For €179 (£158) per person a night, you get a hearty breakfast buffet, afternoon tea (served from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.) and the full dinner menu. As we realised the next day, put it all together and you need not bother with lunch.
In line with my resolution to keep things as fuss-free as possible, the hotel was less than two minutes’ walk from the gondola and ski hire shop, so we were kitted out and on the slopes within half an hour. In total, the connected ski area has 18 blacks, 89 reds and 97 blues – plus access to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier which guarantees skiing even in the least reliable conditions. An adult pass costs €298 (£264) for five days. The huge range of difficulty levels meant we could find our feet in the morning before giving our legs a challenge in the afternoon. Higher up, it was bitterly cold – and I was glad I’d finally ditched my mum’s 1980s ski gear and invested in a much snazzier, warmer set (around £300 for jacket and trousers from Dope Snow).
‘People love the area because it has everything – on the slopes and off,’ our ski instructor, Wilco from the Netherlands, said. ‘There’s loads to do for families but you can also come here as a young person and have fun.’ You could see that in the friendly mountain huts, such as Alte Schmiede, where older couples happily grazed on chips while twenty-somethings kicked off their après-ski.
Next, we decided to sample the off-piste activities. It was a toss-up between ice skating on the frozen Ritzensee Lake or a sleigh ride tour. We opted for the latter (€80/£71 for four people) and had a delightful experience being pulled by two Noriker horses – a local breed and one of the oldest mountain draft horses in Europe. The decorative wooden chalets of Leogang melted into forest where there was just the swoosh of the thawing river, the rustle of pine trees and the clip-clop of hooves.
Day two of skiing was sunnier and busier – but the vastness of the ski area meant it was always possible to find a quiet slope in good condition. A second ski guide explained that the Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang area has become more and more popular in recent years: ‘People love it because it’s so friendly. Everything is family-run. If one hotel doesn’t have room for you, the owner will send you to his brother who has a guest house down the road.’
After another hard day on the legs, we decided to try out the Hotel Salzburger Hof’s spa. Technically it’s two spas: one for children with a heated pool in the garden and one for adults on the open rooftop. Wisps of steam from the 30°C pool framed views of the slopes as they went from a lilac sunset to an inky blue-black. Spa culture is hugely important in Austria (citizens can be prescribed a session by their version of the NHS) and the swim-sauna combination proved just the cure for our legs before the journey home.
All in all, it was a trip that had everything – city sightseeing, café culture, physical challenges, great gastronomy and a bit of R&R thrown in. Yes, including a city break meant missing out on one day’s skiing – but to swap a day on the slopes for the chance to explore a new destination and arrive home feeling fully refreshed (rather than travel-frazzled) was a sacrifice I would be more than willing to make again.
How to do it
Flights from London to Salzburg start from around £26 return via Ryanair. Prices at the Hotel Wolf-Dietrich in Salzburg start from €167 (£148) per night for two people and for the Hotel Salzburger Hof in Leogang from €179 (£158) per person during ski season.
More information about the city of Salzburg can be found here. More information about Saalfelden-Leogang and the wider SalzburgerLand ski region can be found here and here.
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