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Published: February 19th 2007
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After getting our butts kicked in St. Anton by the great Alpes..we were humbled but decided to try again in a small ski village about 3 hours west of Vienna in Salzburger Land. David had read about a trio of small villages a few miles from each other..Bad Gastein, Bad HofGastein and Dorf Gastein. After doing some research on the towns we decided on Bad HofGastein..(it had absolutely nothing to do with the state of the art Alpine Spa they had). These towns in their hayday had played host to the royalty and the rich and famous who were mostly attracted to the thermal waters. These days the town has lost a bit of its popularity but not its charm.
We were told by out B&B lady to take a cab from the train station to the house, but when we got to the train station there were not cabs in sight and the train station was nothing more than a small hall. We did notice a group of Sr. Citizens all dolled up in dead animals hurrying to get in a bus that had a sign reading Zentrum. We figured this bus took you to the center of town
and we hopped on. During th 15 minute bus ride we must have covered about a 1.5 square mile area. People in the bus were conversing with the bus driver and everyone was laughing so we felt the need to join in..hopefully they were not laughing at the two "young" americans.. since we needed at least 30 more years and 2-5 dead animals converted into fur coats to fit in in this group.. We got to the center and after getting our bags we asked the bus driver if he can point us in the direction of Haus Enzian.. he said in broken English.. "ohhh.. get back on the bus, I'll drive you there". At that point I got a little nervous that our choice in a B&B might have been a bad one if we were that far off the center for our bus driver to offer to drive us there.. but we put our bags back on the bus and off we went. After a couple of more stops our generous drive dropped us off by our Pension. We thanked him and started looked around to figure out our location in reference to the town. We realized that
the center was less than 200 yards away.. and we can see from where we were standing the first place we had got off at.. hmm.. so we got back on the bus and did a circle around town and came back..
Haus Enzian was centrally located and had the right price.. so we overlooked the fact that it lacked personality. We dropped off our stuff, checked out the town.. found an incredibly delicious vegeterian restuarant, Kraut & Ruben Das Vegetarische Restaurant (my diet for the great majority of this trip has consisted of bread, cheese and eggs.. so you can imagine my excitement). One of the main differences in the restuarants in these small towns vs Cali is the luxury of eating freshly cooked meals (with locally grown fresh vegetablesvs the microwave or premade stuff. Granted it takes much longer for your food to get to the table after ordering but it's a small price to pay for finger licking good food!
After dinner we went bar hopping and for a small village Bad HofGastein had a number of bars and even a disco..it was a Tuesday and the disco wasn't quite the party spot it apparenty
is one weekends.. but there were a handful of people who felt the uncontrollable urge to dance to country music and we appreciated the entertainment.
The next morning after a predictable breakfast of hard boiled eggs, cheese, cold cuts and coffee we headed to the slops. After a quick ride on the "Ski Tram" up the slops and another gondola ride we walked up to the mountians.. WOW! The most breathtaking views ever.. after trying to take it all in for a few minutes.. David and I agreed that we could sit here all day and be completely content..but the slopes were waiting.
I have to admit after the hard falls I had in St. Anton, my confidence was completely shut and I felt nervous as hell getting on that board..I have a feeling David had similar feelings.. but we got on the boards and started our nervous, careful decent down the mountain. It didn't take long for us to feel more comfortable on the boards, the fresh powder snow and the wide runs helped, not to mention the considerably fewer number of people on the slops.
After a great morning of boarding.. we decided to stop
for a bite to eat on one of the many restuarants on the slopes. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day.. so we opted for one of the many benches on the mountain to grub on. As it turned out a group of very friendly, funny and alcohol induced Irish gentelman were lunching in the same cabin. It didn't take long for us to befriend them and before we knew it we were offered various homemade whiskeys from their flasks to taste and appreciate. This is where David was also introduced to the nose mints.. aka snuff.. he loved the snuff so much he ended up buying some as soon as we got back into town. One of the Irish doods grabbed me to dance with him and before I knew it he had me over his shoulder jumping up and down... I had no idea what hit me but I couldn't stop laughing and finally begged him to stop.. apparently this is some kind of an Irish tradition.. When we told them we were going to be in Dublin in a few weeks.. they were very excited and offered some much welcomed tips and places not to miss
while in Ireland. After sharing a round of Jegermister shots we were all feeling nice and relaxed and ready to hit the slopes for the afternoon. We gave our goodbye hugs and left. I think we just had a glimpse of what our Ireland trip is going to be like.. and I CANNOT wait!! LOVE THE CRAZY IRISH!!!!
That night we had decided to go check out the Alpine Thermal Spa.. and it did not dissapoint... the place puts all the fancy LA spas to shame.. It is beautifully done.. and the outdoor heated pool and saunas were amazing. There is something really cool about being in a pool with snow all around you.. After 3 hours of sweating and sweltering..cooling off and sweating again our bodies were like jello and we were famished.
We decided to head out to get a bite to eat. Well we forgot for a second we were in a tiny village and after 9pm things shut down. Well after aimlessly walking around we found a place that looked open, we walked in and the guy basically made an exception since the kitchen was closing in five minutes and they were only serving
drinks. Whew.. we got lucky.
The next day we were pretty sore and tired from boarding so we decided to take it easy and check out Bad Gastein which was a 10 minute bus ride from Bad HofGastein. We had read that Bad Gastein had a waterfal smack in the middle of town and had to check it out. And in the middle of town it was.. we were hoping to do some ice climbing around the waterfal.. but because of the warmer than usual weather no ice climbing was possible. We went on a small hike around town and even went to the spa here which was supposed to be the oldest spa in town. The place wasn't as nice as the one we had been to..but it did have a waterslide.. we joined the group of 1-12 year olds and climbed up the stairs and slide down the slide.. over and over and over again.. 😊
Our last full day we boarded again and even learned a few new moves to improve our boardng. We headed back to Vienna that afternoon..exhausted, but thrilled to have experienced great conditions to board in Austria despite the less than
ideal winter in Europe.
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