Blogs from Sankt Anton am Arlberg, Tyrol, Austria, Europe

As the ski season drew to a close we spotted a great deal at a chalet in St Anton and couldn't resist the lure of Easter at the snow (finally - some good comes out of the credit crunch!!). Our chalet was fabulous, with an indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi and sauna. We had a 5 course dinner cooked every night, and the food was amazing (thanks Craig!!). As if that was not enough, there were champagne and canapés to start ... needed the skiing to work off all that delicious food. The skiing was proper spring skiing, icy in the morning and slushy by 3pm. There had been many, many avalanches around the resort, so much so that the blue run back to the resort was closed. That meant that all skiers from one side of ... read more

First update from the almost 1000 meters of Landeck, in the Tyrolean Alps. A day of rest where, apart from ensuring a minimum of maintenance to Rocinante, I'm in full immersion in the art of eating: breakfast at 10; half a ton of junk-food at lunch-time and now a rich snack of coffee and cake. And it’s only 5pm. Sometimes I suspect I cycle 100 kms per day just to allow myself to consequently freely indulge in food. Food was actually the greatest of my concerns during the first days of this trip. The heat was so torrid to make food conservation almost impossible apart from creating a sort of inappetence, something absolutely unhealthy when you spend most of the day pedalling. Two years ago, crossing the Scandinavian Peninsula, I used to buy all I needed ... read more

Our trip began with a sprint accross western europe to catch the remainder of the ski season in the alps. We had an afternoon crossing from dover to calais and ended up stopping the frist night in a half open campsite near Tournai in Belgium. Grand for one night but wouldn't want to have stayed their any longer. The next day we made it as far as the black forest in Germany after a stop for lunch in Luxembourg. There were quite a few beautiful 'gasthaus' in the black forest but since it was off season they were all closed. We free camped that night at a forest car park at the top of one of the hills and woke up to some beautiful scenery and moved on towards the alps. Shilpa didn't even have ... read more

It is a bit concerning when it is mid-January in Europe and the most common response to my comment ‘I am heading off for a week of skiing in Austria’ is ‘Is there any snow?’. A layer of stress is added when the planned ski holiday is with two Aussies who have traveled half way across the world for said ski trip. What is a girl to do? In my case: * obsessively check the snow reports for at least three weeks pre departure (including checking other resorts in Europe to see if an alternative destination would have been better - no, it was crap everywhere); *repeat like a mantra the phrase ‘I picked St Anton partly for the snow and partly because it is famous for its Après ski (some say the best in Europe). ... read more

Over two years ago Suzy and I where looking for adventurous places to go snowboarding. We found a place in the Alps named St. Anton am Arlberg. This little town was a two hour train ride from Zurich in the Austrian Alps. We did the math and decided to go to Whistler/Blackcomb in British Columbia, Canada. At the time I made Suzy a promise that we would some day visit and board in St. Anton. I had even sent her a ecard from the site inviting her with me in the future to make the journey. Well, as luck has it, I was able to keep my promise to my incredible wife to be on 12/26/06. We decided on a 3 day Austrian rail pass (95 euros total for 2 people), thinking 2 days would be ... read more