Austrian adventure

My daughter and I decided to have a more sporty adventure this summer and we booked a 10 night holiday at the Active and Spa Resort Alpenpark in Seefeld, Austria. Our hotel was a very good 4* but very much aimed at families with small children. They had a really good baby nursery on site but little for the older children to do. However the food and service were very good and our room was spacious and well appointed. Just a shame we didn’t book the weather as the jet stream was unusually positioned right over the Alps for the whole of July and August so in the 10 days we were there, we were only able to use the pool on one day.

We ventured out on bikes several times – there were some nice rides in the area – but with the roads so wet, we nearly came a cropper and decided to abandon that idea.

There are some good local cable cars and also a funicular railway which will get you up the resort’s surrounding mountains if you don’t feel able to walk, but the walking trails are reasonably well marked and there were plenty of people out walking in their waterproofs. We did this for several days and then decided to venture further afield, so we booked a trip to Lake Achensee which is reputed to be Austria’s most beautiful lake. It is certainly the largest and the deepest.

The coach deposited us in Pertisau for the afternoon which is a lovely lakeside town. Pertisau was a favourite hunting area for the rulers of the Tyrol, and the hotel on the lakefront is a former hunting lodge. The mountains behind Pertisau also provided a special type of oil - ichthyol, a type of fossil-oil - used in homeopathic remedies. We had a bite to eat and then booked a round trip on the lake steamer to enjoy the views – albeit in the drizzle. It really was beautiful.

A couple of days later, we decided to venture out again and we booked a full day out to see the highest waterfalls in Austria. It was a fairly long drive up the Otz valley and we enjoyed some beautiful high mountain scenery. The valley is characterised by its steep mountains on both sides, and the frequent gorges which separate the climbs from one level to another. The town of Ötz lies on the first level and gives its name to the valley.

A climb to the next level brings the villages of Umhausen and Tumpen – and behind Umhausen lie the Stuiben Falls. The coach parked up and we had a 15 minute walk down to the top of the falls – and the noise was pretty deafening. The flow of water was amazing.

The valley includes the highest road border crossing in the Alps, as well as the second highest roads in Europe, and is surrounded on all sides by peaks over 3,000 metres in height. We travelled up that highest road – characterised by many hairpin bends and both sides of the coach got frightening views down the sides of the mountain as we climbed ever higher. Eventually we arrived at the lift station for the Rettenbach glacier – and we all gratefully piled into the restaurant for hot chocolate and refreshments. We decided to pay that bit extra and go up the cable car to the glacier and enjoy the view further up – it was definitely worth the extra cost and time to do that. The views from 11,000 feet were amazing.

On the way back to Seefeld, we stopped at the beautiful Stams Basilica.

We did some things we hadn’t done before such as the glacier experience and also travelling up and down on cable cars. It was a real shame that the weather was so poor, but we did have a great holiday.