A week in a ski resort....

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Day 74 – Travelling to Lech, Austria
Today was our last day in Italy. This morning was a really early start, and a nice long walk. We had to make our train at 6:20am, and we had 1.5km’s to walk through the streets of Venice, so we got up at 5am and got there with 10mins to spare. On the train, we again enjoyed 1st class comfort and amazing scenery. It was a 1hr to Verona, then at 9am we jumped on our train to Innsbruck, Austria. This trip was 4 hours long, so the music came out, and we enjoyed it all the way. Getting closer and closer, there was more and more snow, so we got excited. At Innsbruck, it was again another train journey to St Anton Am Arlberg, then we jumped on a bus after a bit of a wait to Lech Am Arlberg, our home for the next 6 nights. After setting off at 6:20am, we reached Lech at 3:45pm!!
We got off the bus, and didn’t really know where in the ski resort our hotel was, and neither did many others. We asked in a shop, and they had never heard of our hotel, but after 10mins we worked out it must be somewhere up the road, so we headed up, to find it at the furthest point in the town. But it was beautiful, we were walking in the snow, dressed up in our snow gear, so we were happy!!  After checking in to Hotel Lech, we ventured out to work out how it all works. We booked a ski pass, then wandered down town to hire our ski equipment and get some lessons for 3 days, ready to start the next day!!
One of our favourite parts of this week was the fact we didn’t have to organise our own food (ie places to go eat). The price of the hotel included breakfast and dinner, we just had to get there at the specified times! At breakfast you had to look at the menu and decide between 2 choices and order it then. When you arrived at dinner, it was brought out to you by the waiter (normally 4 courses; salad, soup, main & dessert). The food was first class too!! It was wonderful, and we just had to organise lunches (which we normally had out on the slopes).
So, that night, when we got back to the hotel, it was a bit of a wait, then we wandered downstairs to get some dinner. The menus as well as most of the signs and information in the hotel were all in German, so Andrea (the owner) always came around to help us out with a translation. Most of the time it was pretty easy for her as they offered a meat or fish dish; we don’t really eat fish so it was usually the meat dish and we ate whatever it came with. After dinner, it was a bit of TV, before hitting the pillow, ready for the exercise of skiing!!
Days 75 – 79 – Skiing in Lech
So, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all skiing days. Some more than others, but still did some skiing!! We had booked some ski lessons, and we ended up getting Klaus, a local who had been with the ski school for 10 years, and was VERY good!! Even had a ski company give him ski’s each year to try out and then tell them what he thought….So we were in good hands!! The days pretty much ran the same way at the beginning and end too, with breakfast in the morning, and then dinner at night…
Wednesday was a learning day. We spent the whole day over on the kiddies slope, learning technique and practicing on the not-so-steep hills. It was harder than it looked, but we did learn very quickly to Klaus’ surprise, and we advanced well beyond what you normally get through on the first day. Unfortunately, we didn’t have ski socks, so at lunch we realised that they were important so got some before we went back out. Also, Jess’ technique was a bit lacking, so by the middle of the last session (we’d been on our feet for 3hours skiing already!!) she was beginning to get tired, sore and falling over more frequently. We did finish the lesson though, both enjoying it a lot still, Mischa decided to practice a bit after the lesson was finished, but not too much. After that, it was the long walk back up to the hotel, which proved to be a good warm-up and cool-down.
Thursday, we started again at 10am with Klaus our awesome ski instructor… again on the Kinderslopes but only for an 1 hour. Once we had conquered the ski from the very top a couple of times, we progressed up the cable car to Oberlech and then the chairlift even higher up the main mountain. We were both feeling pretty confident, hadn’t fallen over skiing for a while. Jess struggled getting off the kiddy chairlift, falling a few times, but not on the slopes! So over at the big hill, Klaus kept informing us that it was no steeper than what we had accomplished before, so take it easy, follow him and remember the important things that we had learned. Stay forward, lean out and snow-plough! ….. And…. We made it without a spill! Both of us!! Some of the others in the group were not so lucky. A couple of runs later and we found ourselves at a nice little spot for lunch. After the break we were back on the slopes doing upper body exercises, without poles, the aeroplane, hands on hips, arms crossed, arms crossed behind your back! Great fun!! It’s interesting, when you first begin to ski you don’t use poles because it’s all about your feet, legs and balance, then as soon as you’re allowed to use the poles, they become your best friend, Jess found it hard to let them go again, even though you don’t actually use them at all whilst skiing, on a beginner level anyway!
At the end of the day (3pm) Klaus took us back to the cable car and we were on our way back to the hotel, a little sorer than yesterday but very happy with the days accomplishments… Not much planned for the afternoon, except a nice long bath and relaxing before dinner. When we got to the hotel, it was a nice surprise to have our camera waiting for us in the reception, PRAISE GOD!! Both buggered, so after dinner we crashed by 11pm, ready for the another day!!
Friday
Today, we woke to horrible weather. Horrible in the sense that it was a bit windy and snowing, making visibility pretty bad. That was at the bottom of the mountain. We got to the ski lesson, to be told we were going up the top top. Jess was feeling VERY sore (bad technique from the first day coming back to haunt her), and because she couldn’t wear glasses, a bit nervous. Once at the top, it was shocking. The wind was howling along at 40km/hr, and snowing heaps!! We couldn’t see the edges of the mountain, Klaus’ line to follow, and Jess couldn’t handle it. After 10mins, it was crying and hurting all the way down to the bottom. It was slow going, but the rest of us didn’t really mind cause it was hard work!! Jess got dropped off at the top of the cable car to make her way down that way, for Mischa and Hosea, it was back up to where we were the previous day. We did a few runs down there, and then had some lunch. After lunch, Klaus took us back up to the top (thankfully the weather was better), and we did A LOT of skiing in the afternoon. By the top of the last run, we were both very tired, and legs were shaking. And so we decided to go ALL THE WAY DOWN!! YAY!! Mischa had really wanted to do that today, so we started at the Top, and stopping every now and then, we went down the big slope, all the way to stop out the front of the ski hire shop (convenient!). Klaus was very impressed and Mischa was loving it, so signed up straight away for another lesson on the Saturday, hoping the weather would clear up.
After that he headed up to the hotel, very excited about the day of skiing he had just done, and found Jess nice and relaxed. We rested a bit, headed on down for dinner, and had a nice surprise!! Chinese fondue was on the menu, which involved us cooking Turkey, Pork and Beef in a boiling soup, adding any sauces ourselves and French fries. Very nice, Jess then proceeded to eat the soup as well!!  Very full and satisfied, we hit the sack, tired, and trying to rest up so Jess could come out for another day.
Saturday
So again, today started an ended the same way with breakfast and dinner. In the middle though was a bit different.
Jess woke up to a really sore neck, legs and just about everywhere, so she decided to spend the day in the room today while Mischa had another day with Klaus on the slopes. The weather was perfect again. So, Mischa's writing the next bit...
This morning we had another girl join our group who was about the same stage as us, so it was nice fast skiing, lots of runs and heaps of fun for the day. We did a few runs down the main slope to the bottom, some exercises and things like that, before going back up to the top, and skiing down the other side of the mountain. This was great, we saw places we hadn't skiied before, and then jumped on a different lift, to take us up a different mountain again. We then proceeded to ski down that mountain, which joined onto the first mountain, and then went down to Uberlech for lunch. After lunch, the weather was turning a bit worse, but was alright. We were feeling it in the legs, but knew we could push through. Klaus then decided to take us on another different run...which was awesome!! We had to ski to the bottom, walk across the road, and then went up this MASSIVE mountain on a standing cable car. When it ended, all you could see was snow. THere was no town, not many runs and people, and it was amazing. The photo's don't really do it justice!! From here, we skiied all the way down to the bottom, which finished at Zurs, where we jumped on the free bus to take us back to Lech. We were all getting tired (except Klaus of course), so we were going to do just one last run from the Top. Instead, we got half-way and decided that we'd just go down to the bottom from there. Lucky, cause we all decided to fall down as our legs just didn't want to do what we wanted them to!! By the time we got to the bottom, it was dead on 3pm, finishing time, so we said our goodbyes and I headed back up to the room to find out if Jess was all good.
So, the rest of the day was again just lazing about, doing what you do on holidays!! 😊 Dinner was fantastic, something different again with eating Deer, but tried not to think of it as eating Rudolph!! 😊
Another great day, one full day left, so Jess really wanted to get enough sleep to get out on the slopes one last time.

Sunday
Our final day in Lech, and thankfully, the weather was beautiful again!! Because of this, Jess was just good enough to get out on the slopes, so we got dressed a bit early, had a quick brekky and headed up by 9:30am. It was still freezing, especially with a bit of wind, but with no-one on the slopes we had some good runs. Jess just wanted to prove that she could do it still, and after two runs with a fall on each, she made it down the 3rd one WITHOUT FALLING OVER!! She was happy, and we got some good photos finally. After another run though, Jess was too sore, so we decided to call it a day on the slopes, handing our ski's and boots back in for the final time. It was about lunch, but just too early, so nothing was open. So we headed back to our hotel room, to try and wash (and dry) all our clothes inside before we had to pack, as it was an early start the following day!! We did get too hungry to wait until dinner, so headed down to our first lunch spot to grab something to eat, then looked through the Christmas markets (not much) and then went back to our room again until dinner. Again, dinner was beautiful, and so we said our thanks to everyone as we wouldn't see them the following day. When we got back up to the room, it was time to pack, but as most of the ski clothing was still wet (among others), we couldn't do it properly, so we watched a few movies, before hitting the sack, setting the alarm for 4:45am....

Monday – Travel to Innsbruck then London
So, today was a big day...
We did get up nice and early, as we had to pack, then had a cab booked for 6:10am to take us to St Anton am Arlberg so we could catch the train at 7am back to Innsbruck, as we were trying to get on the early 10am flight back to London. Everything went pretty smoothly (the taxi ran 15mins late, but got us there on time), but when we arrived at the airport, bad news hit us. Because of the bad weather in London, there were numerous flights not leaving, mainly our early flight to get to Innsbruck. This meant, that at 8:30am, we got to the airport to see that the early flight had been cancelled. As we had booked ourselves on the late flight, we just had to wait and see if that one was going to leave. So, we checked our bags in (YAY!!) and carried our stuff up the road to the closest McDonalds to use their free wifi, and have some brunch. We probably stayed in McDonalds the longest we ever had before, as it was warm, there was food and internet. We finally headed back to the airport after about 2 hrs, hoping that the flight was still going. It appeared it was, so we went through security, and waited there. Our flight did end up arriving, thankfully, but it was a bit late. Scheduled to leave at about 4pm, this would get us in to London at 5:30pm, which would give us enough time to do something in London. Unfortunately, we were delayed, then there was a mix-up with the headcount on the plane which delayed us another 30mins, then when we got to London Gatwick, we had to taxi for ages, then finally got inside. Security was nice and quick, but we then had to wait 1.5 hours to get our BAGS!!! We landed at 5:50pm, and we didn't get our bags until 7:15pm. When we did, we proceeded to the train, to find that a LOT of trains were delayed or cancelled. Luckily, our's was only delayed by 15mins, so we jumped on and finally made it to our hotel at 9pm!! After checking in, we proceeded to go find somewhere to eat, settling on a nearby Pizza Hut restuarant. Who would've thought that at 10pm on a Monday, they would still be cooking dinner!! It was yummy, and cheap, so we finally got into bed about 11:30pm, and after getting up at 4:45am, we were pretty much DONE!! Goodnight!!

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Comments

[Fletcher]

Delays
When I was reading the Venice blog Mum asked if you guys had been delayed by the bad weather and at that point I was like 'nah, they're going to ski in Austria for a week so I'm pretty sure snow hasn't worried them too much apart from the England transport", sorry to jinx you on an international transport level ;)