Being Canadian and growing up skiing, Andrew wanted to try out some of the European ski destinations during his time here. As I’ve never tried Nordic (cross-country) skiing, we thought it would be fun to give it a go!
Friday
As per usual, we raced to the airport straight from work on Friday evening, arriving at Saltzburg at around 9:30pm. We picked up a car at the airport and drove down to our air B&B in Grobming around 1.5 hours away. We were really fortunate and got a free upgrade to a larger car which meant that transporting the skis would be a lot less stressful!
Saturday
Breakfast at the B&B was lovely, with bread from the bakery in the village and little knitted hats to keep the boiled eggs warm. Once fed, we drove up to Ramsau am Dachstein, via the tourist information centre in Schladming where we picked up trail maps.
Cross country skis are split into two types: classic and skate. Classic skis are the usual one people start out on since it’s a bit easier to get the hang of. The skis have grippier bottoms to stop you sliding backwards and you sort of walk along grooved out tracks in the snow. Skate skis are slippier and the technique is a little more complex, moving from one ski to the other in a diagonal motion across a groomed slope.
Typically, Andrew convinced me to just go straight for the skate skis (€40/person for 48 hours) so we picked some up and off we went along the Dachstein Skating route. Unfortunately, I happened to be recovering from the flu so had really bad chest and back pain, the first section was uphill and I had to carry the backpack (I’m not actually sure why, I was probably just being stubborn) so it’s safe to say I struggled at first! I did start picking up the technique though, and felt a lot more comfortable by the end of the trip! Andrew obviously just cruised along without a care in the world…
We stopped for a well deserved coffee and cake around mid-afternoon at Waldschenke, just by the entrance to the ski area. It was really cosy inside with big wooden tables, traditional music, and trays of yummy cakes. We shared an apple strudel with vanilla cream and it was delicious. Slightly recovered, we skid along route 30 for a couple more hours until after sunset when it was time to head back to the B&B.
Before dinner, we squeezed in a quick trip to the sauna, and then headed out to S’speiskammerl to eat. The whole menu was in German and handwritten so I had some trouble translating, fortunately a helpful local came over and talked us through it before writing down a whole list of recommendations in the area for us. They didn’t have any vegetarian options, so I had schnitzel stuffed with brie and beans on noodles and Andrew has tender pork medallions in a red wine sauce with vegetables and spätzle. The food was incredible!
Saturday
Today we planned to do a long day of skiing, so we had an early breakfast and headed straight out. We did black route 17 (Rittisloipe), the hardest in the resort, which went around a whole mountain with pretty steep hills. It took around 5 hours to complete, and we definitely earned another slice of cake at Waldschenke on the way back to the car and a sauna back at the B&B.
For dinner, we went to Spekhutte which overlooked a little lake and has a really friendly atmosphere. I had Wiener schnitzle and Andrew had pork medallions. The food the night before was better, but the location of this place was really nice and we enjoyed our meal.
Sunday
We got out as early as we could this morning to get in some good skiing before we headed home. We switched the skate skis for classics so that I could try out both and went off down route 5 (Tritscherhöheloipe) which was a lovely route down through the forest before circling back up the the main ski area. Unfortunately, there was one pretty steep downhill section that I was definitely not prepared for and went head first into a pile of snow. It wasn’t ideal.
Rather than going straight back to the airport, we stopped in Saltzburg for a couple of hours on the way. We walked along the river and through the old town centre which was cute with quaint little cobbled streets. We went for coffee and cake at Schatz-Konditorei which was small and dainty and seemed quite posh and then headed back to the airport in time for our 5pm flight.
