The St. Anton Experience

Sorry friends I have not posted in some time. I have been so busy since we arrived from our ski trip that I have not had a chance to sit down and write something about our recent trip and it now feels like a far away memory! So here is a chronicle of our ski trip:
(Warning: I was in the mood to write, so it's quite long...lol)

4 Canucks hit the Austrian Slopes:

Every year Andreas and I have been skiing in Verbier, “Vallais” Switzerland and this year we decided to try something new and thought about skiing in Austria. I have always heard wonderful things about Austrian skiing. So I planned for our March Ski trip to St. Anton am Arlberg last October and I am happy I did, as the resort was completely booked out by January when I was looking for rooms for my sister who decided to join us. Luckily, I found them a very nice hotel: Haus BachSeite within walking distance of our place. I found both hotels via the St. Anton am Arlberg website which I have to say is great!

Our family-run hotel the “Larchenhoff” was just wonderful! It has rooms, studios and apartments with large balconies and nice views, and all newly renovated with good prices. Over the past years I have found that paying the extra for an apartment with a full kitchen and separate bathroom is so much better than a hotel room. I like the idea of making my own breakfast, cooking some meals at home and sitting out on the patio après ski. Having a larger place to relax in is so worth the difference. Let’s face it sometimes, the weather can get so foggy in the Alps that skiing is not that enjoyable and it is nice to be able to have your space on days like that.

The Train Chronicles - Part 1 of the trip:
Saturday morning Andreas and I flew to Zurich and met up with Mary and Martin who flew in from London. It was so great to see my sister again and it felt like an extended Christmas trip! Since Mary’s boyfriend has moved to London, I have seen her more often and I'm very happy about that. My sister and I, although we have a 9 years age difference, we are very close. We had some time to wait for the train to St. Anton so we sat at a pub and had lunch (pic of us waiting for the train).

Finally on the train, which was quite a stressful event, as we all had suitcases and getting them up and down stairs to the platform, and onto the train was quite a sweaty, swearing experience. Andreas and I packed light as we know about traveling in Euroland on trains, but no matter how hard we tried we still had 3 suitcases: given we were going for 10 days and we had our bulky ski clothes, ski boots and of course we like to change our clothes from day to day. We decided not to bring our skis: (Imagine, we have wonderful top of the line skis and we can’t bring them because of extra expensive baggage fees and the hassle of getting them on the train, etc., so we figured it was not worth the trouble).
Now in hindsight and given our bizarre train encounter, boy are we glad we did not bring them!
So here goes the train story for 4 North Americans who don’t take the train very often - even in their own country:

When the train arrived at the Zurich airport platform we had like 1 min to jump on the train and load all the baggage. We just stood in between the coaches till we got to the Zurich HB - main train station for the 15-20 min ride, as it was not worth lugging all our stuff up the stairs to sit down and the train was fully packed! So here we are in between the cars, jerking around, sweating and laughing. So now we get to the main station and we have to get off quickly. We had about 10 mins to get to our next train. We arrived on platform 2 and now we had to get to platform 12????…Phew what a walk and we couldn't find any elevators so had we had to lug our baggage up lots of stairs and then down again and then up again….and finally we arrive at the platform and in about 3 mins the train arrives. As I mentioned before, you have to get on quickly because the station time is not very long. At this point, my vocal husband is sweating and cursing trains and Europe under his breath. Mary is jet-lagged from her trip as she flew the day before Toronto-London and Martin is also jet lagged arriving from Grenade-London also the day before. The both of them could not help laughing at Andreas' anger comments. So now we get on the train in the nick of time and the doors are closing and the train is leaving and the four Canadians are there squished between the cars again with the 5 suitcases, Mary’s skis and the 5 napsacks on our backs wondering: where is the baggage car? So, I head through the car and see no space to put the bags. Next car, I still see no baggage space. So we decide to haul all the bags to our car, find our seats, take off our big ski jackets and worry about placing the bags properly later. At this point we are all sweating and Andreas and I go looking for the baggage car and realize there is no baggage car at all! There is a suitcase rack above the seats, but it is not made for large traveling cases. Most people just have a napsack above or coats and briefcases. Obviously, most of the people in our wagon were not going skiing. So we manage to put 2 small suitcases on top and the other larger ones we put behind us in between seats, hoping the train doesn’t get too crowded and we have to move the bags for people to sit down. I am still convinced there has to be a place to store the bags, so I start wandering around the train and find that many people have put their suitcases in a space between the 6th and 7th cars (where no toilets are located). Well, that is about 6 cars down from our first class wagon and it is already overly packed with luggage that we don’t see that as an option. Then I found an empty mail/storage car and it is empty. I see that is for bicycles so I thought we could place our bags there. So I head back and tell them about that space and Andreas said "for now we will leave the bags where they are and move them there if we have to". Martin agrees and we relax and order some beers and talk about the strange baggage experience.

About 15 minutes later, we are calming down and all of a sudden, one of the mid-size suitcases falls from above and lands right on my head and then bounces down on my neck and upper back! I tell you I saw stars. I can just hear Andreas screaming….What the F….? It hurt so much I had tears in my eyes and then I see Mary’s face covered in worry. I head off to bathroom to put some cold water on my face and neck and felt a large bump emerging from my head. We decided to remove those suitcases as we worried they would fall again and we piled them all on the others. Then along comes the conductor, a short, slim, strange looking chap, stops at us and rudely asks for the tickets. We ask him about the bags and he shrugs his shoulders and says “I don’t care”. We ask about the bicycle wagon I saw and ask if we could move the bags there if we must…and he says “No! Only for bicycles…”in his weird rude tone. I explain to him that we have the bags 3 seats down from us and that one fell on my head from above and it is dangerous to place the bags there and they dont fit anywhere else, and I kid you not, he shrugs his shoulders again and says: “I don’t care”! So now my French temper is rising and I rudely say back “Well if you don’t care, we don’t care”! He stamped the tickets and then he walked off murmuring to himself. Geez, what an unbelievable conversation! Mary and Martin are freaking out and saying that would not happen on Via Rail, etc and Andreas was getting angrier by the moment.

So now the time passes and we are moving along nicely with our new “I don’t care, I live for myself attitudes in Switzerland” enjoying the beautiful country side and Alps. It was really nice to see Mary and Martin enjoying the views which I have been lucky to see many times while I lived in this beautiful but strange Switzerland. 3 hours later we arrive in St. Anton and I tell Andreas we better move quickly because this is not the last stop and we don’t have much time to get off the train. So once again, lots of huffing and puffing and we all head off to our hotels. I can see our hotel across the street upon the hill and I show Mary hers on the map, so we all lug our baggage again across the street, up a large hill with small stone steps that our feet could barely fit on. Out of breath, we finally get to the top and enter the small courtyard of the hotel and I am greeted by Gretel, the elderly house owner. She was very friendly and could see that Andreas was exhausted and not too happy…LOL. She contently dealt with me and told me that she was sorry they had no elevator and we were staying on the 4th floor….Oh no, more stairs…LOL. By the time we reached the apartment we were both wiped-out, but when we walked in and saw the lovely place we would call home for the next 10 days we were happy! And even happier we were off the train-ride from hell!

The hotel-Apartment – Arrival:
Our hotel apartment was located right on the pedestrian street “Dorf Strasse” of St. Anton Village. It was very charming and bright and tastefully decorated with a large cozy living room and dining area. We had a large bathroom and nice bedroom and balcony on the sunny side overlooking the ski area and Alps. Once settled in, Andreas took a nap and I wandered out into the village to checkout our surroundings and to the tourist information for some brochures. It was early Saturday night – and après ski was going on and the place looked so wonderful with happy skiers with warm sun colours on their faces sitting back and enjoying their drinks.

(Andreas outside the hotel)

(Relaxing one night in the apartment for dinner)

Later that evening, we then met up with Mary and Martin and went to the new Tappas Bar – BODEGA located right by my hotel for some drinks and nibbles. They have wonderful tappas and great wine at very affordable prices and nice Spanish music playing in the background. It was really fun and we ended up staying there a bit too long and by 9:30 pm, we could not find a single restaurant to take us. Everything was fully booked and most of the places stopped serving food by 10 pm. So we ended up finding a fast food kebab place and had some kebabs and went home. The next day we slept in from exhaustion..LOL, got some groceries, rented our skis, got the ski tickets and checked out the ski-center and facilities.

The Skiing and Facilities:
St. Anton am Arlberg – a Tyrolean mountain village is 1304 meters above sea level, and there are several areas to ski: the St-Anton “Tal” center to St. Christoph–Rendl- St. Jakob and you can even go to the further areas by a “free” bus service to Stuben, Zurs, and Lech. As we were staying in St. Anton, I was not about to take buses far away to ski, so we basically skied in the St. Anton-am Arlberg-St. Christoph Area. Their facitlies and infrastructure is some of the best I have seen in Europe with fast cable cars, 6 people chair lifts and isolated bubble lifts. There are many hill-top restaurants and pubs all over the area. (Lisa and Mary at the Galzig)

The weather was quite warm and sunny for the first 4 days and I have to say as a result the snow was very slushy and heavy and quite bumpy. We decided to ski higher and went up to the Galzig – 2185 m. The snow was quite better there and thus very crowded. Then up to the Schindler Sptize 2660 m, which was also much better snow, but I guess everyone had the same idea to head up there for the better snow and it was very crowded by the afternoon. We did ski a long run from there down to St. Christoph and stopped and had lunch at a typical Tyrolean cozy restaurant. The weather was so nice that we sat outside and soaked in the warm sun enjoying our Austrian beer and lunch. Skiing back down to the village was very tough. The snow was wetter and bumpier now and the ski paths narrowed and it was very crowded. Many inexperienced skiers were struggling and falling down. It was not very enjoyable and I am an experienced skier, and I tell you, I did not want to do that again, so most days we would take the cable car down to the Village.

Unfortunately, the remainder of our days started becoming very overcast with rain in the village and wet snow higher up. We could not ski much up top because it was completely “white out”. White out is a ski-expression: when you only see white! And you can’t even make out the snow pattern underneath you. My sister, who skis in Ontario at small mountains, has never witnessed white out! I tell you, it is not nice to ski in those conditions with slanted trails and slushy moguls. When skiing in the Alps and given the high altitude, if you do not have sunshine or some sunrays, skiing is very difficult and not very enjoyable.

So on one of our white out days, Mary and I checked out the Wellness Centre and had a nice, relaxing swim in their pools. They have an indoor pool and a heated outdoor pool equipped with whirl pool and a beautiful view of the alps. After we took a steam bath and sauna. It was quite a funny experience because everyone is naked together. There are no separate showering and changing facilities for men and women. In North America we are not accustomed to this so Mary could not stop laughing as we were running around naked. I strongly suggest a nice relaxing day at the Wellness Centre if you have some bad weather.

Overall, I have to honestly say that due to the wet snow I was not too impressed with ski trails-routes in the Glazig and St. Anton Tal area, so I spoke to the ski shop dudes and they told me to try Rendl. Rendl is 2100 meters and apparently has wider trails that are not so lop-sided and better snow conditions. It is very close to St. Anton and you can take a free bus ride for about 10 minutes or so to the Gondola. Or you can also take their express T-bar to the station. I think the bus is better and faster. So we all headed up at Rendl the next day and it was much better, but it was getting warmer and the snow was also quite wet. But compared to skiing at the other places this was far better in my opinion and there was an easy beginner trail there so Martin could ski as well. I noticed that not many people were skiing there so there were not as many big moguls forming from the wet snow. (Having fun at Rendl station with big snowman). It is definitely worth a trip to Rendl!

I gave Martin some lessons and he was catching on quickly, but the snow was very heavy and hard to handle. I think that the middle of March and spring snow is not the best time to learn to ski. Poor guy, I don’t think he will do a ski trip again! However, he was a great sport and said he enjoyed just being with us and out in the fresh clean air in the beautiful Alps.

From then on we mostly skied at Rendl. On their last day, the sun was trying to come out and Mary felt like skiing a bit more so her and Andreas decided to ski down to St. Anton. The trail is a combination of red and blue runs and is 4 km long. I took the gondola down with Martin and we met them later at the village.

(Andreas and Mary getting ready to ski down the 4km run)

Martin and I got down, removed our boots, checked in our skis (another great thing in St. Anton is that you can pay about 35 euro for the week and leave your skis and boots in one of the ski shops located right at the hill's gondola station) and went to the little outdoor pub and waited for them. Well about 30 minutes late they showed up and they looked exhausted. Poor Mary she was limping. She fell and hurt her leg, and at one point she said it was so steep and narrow that she had to take off her skis and slide down on her bum. Andreas just looked at me and said…”Rough, very rough…just like Ruinette in Verbier at the end of the day in spring”. And right there I knew: “Oh no, poor them!” Although they were both very tired and happy to be down Mary was proud she did it, but she said in those conditions is was not worth doing it again! (After that long day of skiing - we stopped at the little apres ski bar - Kathi's bar)

Restaurants and Après Ski:
Overall the restaurants and food in St. Anton was wonderful. There were so many different restaurants to choose from with different décors and menus. But, you had to reserve! Most people are out for dinner and the restaurants, and I mean all of them, get fully-packed. We had Austrian, Italian, and Mexican. Our favorite restaurant was the Dolce Vita, an Italian restaurant with a huge menu to please everyone. We also loved the Steak house and their fabulous beef but the temperature in there was just too hot. We felt like we were eating in a sauna. Our favorite après ski bars were the Alte Poste Hotel with a wonderful circular terrace with comfy chairs and a view of the mountain and when the sun went in there was a gigantic umbrella that opened and covered the entire circular terrace to keep your warm!

(the 4 of us at Dolce Vita)

(The sisters)

(And their men)

Bobos, the Mexican place and their live band was also another favorite. The infamous Piccadilly was packed every night and the people there were very drunk. I did not really care much for that place. As for the Post Keller -Night club…I only had a fast look and it wasn’t anything special. Geez, I was even too tired from our day of skiing, après ski and dinner to even think about going to a night club at 11:30 pm till 4 in the morning. Perhaps in my younger days, but now—no way, I wanted be awake in the land of the living and have a nice day! I was happy that Mary and Martin felt the same way as us. So we were usually in bed by midnight and we enjoyed our non-hangover ski days!

Another crazy Après Ski place is the Krazy Kanguruh and Moosewirt “typical” well known après clubs on the hill tops. On our second to last day of skiing Andreas and I decided to go check it out. That day, Andreas and I had been skiing at Rendl so at 3:30 we took the cable car down, hopped on the bus to make it to the St. Anton ski area to jump on the last cable car up to the Galzig to ski down to the après ski huts. I am an advanced skier, and I tell you it was not easy to get ski to those pubs. The snow conditions were very wet and the moguls were huge and the intermediate trails were quite steep. People were falling everywhere and it was the end of the day and everyone was funneling down the narrow bumpy paths. We finally made it and I tell you my legs were burning. The soles of my feet and calf muscles were on fire! So we get there at 4 pm and the places is so crowded with mostly young ones! The music was loud and everyone was beginning to look drunk. All we did was laugh. We ordered a beer and looked around for a place to sit. At this point, we had to sit down and nothing was available. Of course, I was not too happy with this place and did my regular Lisa swearing and complaining. I thought to myself: "what am I doing here with all these young drunks"…This is pure crap" I said to Andreas and "imagine breaking a leg to get here!…LOLOL". I much rather be down in the village at my Alte Poste Hotel in my normal comfy boots sitting back on a nice chair enjoying the après ski.

Finally Andreas spots a place. So we sit down next to 2 Dutch women in their mid-forties. They looked exhausted and discouraged like us. So we all had a good laugh. Then some younger German guys sit down next to us and things start getting wilder all around. The music is louder, the people are dancing and we are on our 2nd pitcher of beer and 2nd glass of pear Williams schnapps! It’s getting darker and people drunker and I keep looking down the hill…”Oh boy they are all going to have to ski down in the dark…and that includes us too!” Have another beer Andreas says, we are great skiers, no problems, we will take it slow..LOL. The Dutch ladies: Monique and Angie are also feeling stressed and laughing that they will slide down on their bottoms.

So now it gets colder so we go inside to the disco. There are lots of people inside now too and we meet up with some young flirtatious British girls pounding back shots in their winter boots. I ask them, how they got there without their skis and they tell me they walked up! LOLOL…apparently lots of people walk up. Oh boy, even though the skiing was not so great I am glad I did not walk up. As the disco winds down everyone is heading off now to the Moosewirt – next door. So we all put on our skis. People are grabbing any skis and falling over as they put them on. Andreas and I checked our skis at the check in beforehand…LOL and I’m glad we did and I can see now why they have that service. So we ski down about 100 meters to the next stop and that is also winding down, but by the looks of the place, it must have been even wilder then the Crazy Kangaroo. At this point I am starving and tired so Andreas and I leave and ski down in the dark slowly to the village passing all sorts of people sliding down and rolling down the hill…LOL. It was an experience!

On our last day the sun came out in the late afternoon and we did not have too much time to ski so we packed our bags, returned the skis, walked around the village, took in the sun at our fav place the Alte Poste and then had a nice dinner.

(Andreas and I at the Alte Poste)

The next day it was pouring rain and we were happy to be leaving. We had the same non-baggage train episode but at least the train ride was fast and empty and we were happy to arrive at the airport. On the train ride home, an older Irish woman sat near us and Andreas was such a gentleman and helped her with her bags. She was very thankful and also quite stressed about the train ride and managing her bags.

Well despite our crazy train rides, we had a great trip and it was even more special to have Mary and Marin with us for the first 5 days of our trip! We all traveled so well together and we were sad when they left before us.

So next year, will we plan another ski trip? I don’t know yet! Maybe a beach vacation! LOL with no trains! Well, I must say that if we do go skiing next year I will go in February or the very beginning of March. No more Spring skiing for me. The snow is just not nice and I don't enjoy skiing in those conditions! Although I prefer the village, restaurants and facilities of St.Anton to Switzerland, I like the easier wider ski trails at Verbier. So every year I can alternate from St. Anton to Verbier. But the next time, I think I will skip the train part and rent a car!

Have a great week everyone!