Ski Trip to Austria - 2011

Our children's school's PTO organizes a ski trip every year in mid-January. They have off for
"report card preparation" on the Friday. The ski trip is to Filzmoos, Austria where there are many ski resorts to choose from. We stayed at the Hotel Unterhof.

View of the pool...

Collecting the kids and bringing them to ski lessons in the "Schikinder Express" (Ski Kids Express).

View from the bottom of the ski slope across from the hotel.

View from atop the mountain.

The girls looking on.

Everyone is taking a break!

Bunny "mascot" that hangs around the lodge on top of the mountain.

One evening there was an outing where you would eat dinner at the lodge at the top of the mountain and then sled down after. Unfortunately we had to hike up half of the mountain and then a wagon picked us up for the rest of the trip. You ride these sleds down a winding "road" that is covered in snow. It is up to you not to fall off the side or bump into anyone. Not the US fear of lawsuits here.

When you get to the bottom, no more sledding!

At the bottom of the hill there was a cemetary...Evidently this is the tradition of Austria....Wrought iron grave markers.

Cemetary at night...

While walking in the town of Filzmoos...

The weekend we go there is a balloon festival as well.

The peak of "Bischofmutze" (Bishops hat).

See also our 2010 trip to Austria

http://ger-seygirl.blogspot.com/2010/03/austria-2010.html

Austria - 2010

Note: I never finished this post back in 2010 but am trying to go back and finish up unpublished posts. See also the trip in 2011.
http://ger-seygirl.blogspot.com/2011/01/ski-trip-to-austria-2011.html

In 2010 we also stayed at the Hotel Unterhof.



Field next to the hotel.



One of the activities aside from skiing was a horse-drawn sleigh ride into the mountains and then dinner. It was too dark for pictures but these are the types of sleighs used. Notice that they have wheels for the roads, and runners that can be dropped into place when we get to the snow.






View from the top of the slopes.



On Sunday on our way back home, we stopped in Salzburg.

According to wikipedia:
Salzburg (literally: "Salt Castle") is the fourth-largest city in Austria and the city of the federal state of Salzburg.
Salzburg's "Old Town" (Altstadt) has internationally renowned baroque architecture and one of the best-preserved city centres north of the Alps. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The city is noted for its Alpine setting.
Salzburg was the birthplace of 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the mid-20th century, the city was the setting for parts of the American musical and film The Sound of Music, which features famous landmarks in Austria. The musical was a partnership between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

In a tourist shop (the only thing open on Sundays!)



Wandering around Salzburg:








Fancy McDonald's sign...



Hohensalzburg Castle high atop a hill in Salzburg:

Skiing, Take 2

We had gone on a school PTA sponsored ski trip to Austria back in January (blogpost to follow, waiting for the younger daughter to upload pictures), so we thought we would try something closer to home in February. So I googled "skiing near Erlangen" and got a hit for Fichtelsberg. Where's that? So I googlemapped Fichtelsberg and it said that it was an hour and 20 minutes from us. Great! It wasn't a big mountain, but that was okay. It had a variety of slopes.

So off we went....but as we started out the GPS said it would take 3 hours. Huh?

Well, it turns out that there is Fichtelsberg the town (which may have some sort of snow related activities) and Fichtelsberg the ski area and they are two different places.

We did make it there eventually. It was the grayest gray day that ever grayed.

If you didn't see the people you would think this was a black and white picture.

But lucky for us, it was "Skifasching". Fasching is what the German's call Mardi Gras or Carneval. It is a time for people to dress up in costume. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera but we captured a few things on my blackberry phone.

Are these ballerina mice?

A little ladybug ?

There was a parade through town and a marching band that ended up at the ski lodge. They also did demonstrations like one guy skiied down as a house on fire and others skiied as firemen carrying a ladder.