2024 - Salter's travels

Champoluc

The quickest way from Bormio to Champoluc is to head to Milan on the autostrada. Bit boring though. We stayed close to the Swiss border which ended up being a great drive although it took us two days. We passed through Livigno on the way where we spotted yellow snow. Traditionally, you are warned not to eat yellow snow, but this was a different type of yellow. This discoloured snow was caused by Saharan dust picked up by the wind, in particular the Foehn wind, and carried high over Europe before being dumped on the alps. I pondered all the times we had driven in the Sahara kicking up the dust and wondered if there might be a connection. The dust makes the ski slopes look a bit of a mess and is probably illegal in Switzerland.

Halfway point was by Lake Maggiore, another of the great northern Italian lakes. Just as we arrived the downpour began. Rain such as is rarely seen along with thunder, lightning and all the trimmings. We had a perfect covered balcony so we could look out across the water and enjoy the show. For the best part of two hours, rain was bouncing off the road while lightning sparked all around the lake and the air was filled with the sound of deep, rolling thunder. We ate our take-away pizza, drank some wine, and relished the ambience of our small, sheltered corner.

Next morning, further south on Lake Maggiore, we hopped on a ferry. There was no good reason for this. We drove into Laveno-Mombello, saw the ferry boat, and decided to give it a go. We enjoy a ferry, lends a little sense of adventure to the day. Fortunately, this crossing did not take us out of our way, as happens sometimes. In fact, it may have helped reduce the drive a little.

A series of minor roads took us into the Aosta Valley while avoiding the autostrada. Finally, a right hand turn and we were winding up the small road towards Champoluc. and the Monte Rosa ski area. This is quite a popular ski area for Brits. Especially now when it is one of the few areas that still has snow. The lifts can carry you through three valley systems to the south of Monte Rosa. This provides ample scope for a wide range of skiing. You can pay extra for one additional cable car to get access to the “free-ride” area. In other words, open, un-pisted and essentially uncontrolled mountainside. Snow conditions were such that no-one was skiing up here. Repeated freeze-thaw had made the snow hard and crusty. Nasty stuff. Best avoided.

Meanwhile, back on the prepared slopes, conditions were not too bad. I had several good days of skiing. By the afternoons all the slopes were turning to slush. The sort of stuff that grabs at your skis and is tiring work. Mornings were best and although the slopes were quite crowded, many of the skiers were having lessons. Once I had found the slopes that were not used for ski school, I could get on with enjoying myself and the mountains. Diane came up to take in the scenery on a couple of days. The warm sun might not have been ideal for the snow slopes, but it was great for sitting out on a deck chair. With a grinding inevitability, our last day arrived. I took one last schuss around the slopes and met Diane for a lazy lunch. We took the lift down together – this seemed the safer option that risking the wet, heavy and difficult melting snow on the lower slopes again.

Next day we set off for Denmark. First part of the trip was the top end of the Aosta Valley and then through the Mont Blanc tunnel. The autostrada runs up to the tunnel and provides a fast, straightforward way to get to France. However, there are many tunnels so if you actually want to see the top end of the valley you need to take the slow road. This is my preferred route. It takes more time but the views are terrific. Some of Europe’s greatest mountains crowned by Mont Blanc which towers over the end of the valley. Then we were through Chamonix and over the Montets pass to Martigny in Switzerland. The evening found us in an excellent apartment overlooking Lake Leman. Next day we drove through Geneve and then aimed north over the wonderful Jura mountains. We paused briefly in Luxembourg and then plodded on through Germany. Two days later we crossed the Keil canal and arrived in Denmark.

Suldun, Garda & Bormio

Sulden nestles underneath the Ortler mountains in a high valley of the South Tyrol. In the summer it can be accessed via the Stelvio Pass. With 75 hairpin bends, this is one of the most remarkable passes in the Alps but is closed during the winter. We needed to go the long way round and arrived just after it started snowing. This looked promising. March was proving to be every bit as unusually warm as February meaning that only the higher altitude ski areas were still functioning. In Sulden we got a good deal on half board in a hotel. We generally avoid this sort of thing and prefer to cook for ourselves. Fortunately, this family run hotel understood something about vegetarian cooking, and we ate quite well. The hotel was old and traditional. Felt comfortable and relaxing. Lots of wood panels, heavy wooden doors and a balcony where we could bask in the midday sun.

I managed a couple of days skiing. Higher up the snow was still in quite good condition. The lower slopes turned to mush by lunchtime and were showing patches of mud by the end of the week. As the skiable area starts to reduce, everyone gets packed into the remaining snowy patches. This increases the wear on the remaining snow, so everything starts to go off quite quickly. The furthest lift is some 300m from the next closest. A local man with a horse and cart offers an informal and voluntarily funded solution. He tows groups of skiers between the two lifts using a long rope attached to the back of the cart. This is and moderately practical. Typically, a few people fall over, and it takes some minutes to get everyone organised again. Even so, it is quicker than walking.

Sulden, no to be confused with Solden, which is in Austria, boasts one of the six Messner Museums. Reinhold Messner, possibly the most famous climber in the world, has been instrumental in setting up these museums which mash together stories of the Himalayas, South Tyrol, great achievements, and the decline of the mountains. To be honest, I found this a bit of a confusing mess although it was moderately interesting. Much more exciting was a rumour of a herd of Yaks kept near the museum. It started raining, hard, just after we set off to find the Yaks and we failed. Various locals assured us that they did exist and pointed us in the right direction but ultimately, we got fed up of being wet and cold so we hopped on the bus back to the hotel. Mesner would have been disappointed with our lack of commitment.

Next stop for skiing was Bormio, but first we skipped south for a weekend drive to be exceptionally beautiful Lake Garda. In general, we try and drive at the weekends. Ski resorts can get terribly busy on Saturday and Sunday, so we try and arrange to be on the road then. In this case we found a fabulous mountain route to a lovely hotel with a balcony overlooking the lake. The sunset was perfect, sundowners were tasty, and the restaurant served a rather good pizza. Terrific way to spend a weekend. We found a different but equally interesting route back north to arrive in Bormio on Sunday evening.

Monday skiing in Bormio was excellent. After that, not so good. On the first day the sun was shinning and there was a little fresh snow from the weekend. By Tuesday, the crowds were turning the snow into slush and the wind was picking up. Wednesday the wind had shut down all the top of the mountain, where all the good snow was, so Diane and I spent the day exploring the town instead. I managed another day’s skiing but by Friday the lower slopes were closing and there were patches of mud everywhere. Time was running out for skiing everywhere in Europe for 2024. Many of the very highest ski areas are near Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe. So, we headed there next.

Italy

Leaving warm and sunny Budapest, we wandered off across Austria in search of snow. We found some. Mostly the dirty, slushy remains of ski slopes. Many resorts had shut down completely. Only the few higher altitude places were still running. We ended up in Kaprun, where they had a glacier. Sadly, the weather was rubbish, so we went for a walk instead and found a nice lake.

We pressed on. Not only in search of snow but also a good weather forecast. Two days later, we slipped into Italy and a little village at the end of Val Senales. This looked a lot more promising and I finally got a good day’s skiing. Then the weekend came, the place became very crowded and the weather turned bleak and cloudy. I spent a day sorting out my photographs. This is causing me a few problems at the moment. A couple of months ago I convinced myself that RAW images were the way to go. They allow much more scope for editing. The first problem was finding some software to use for sorting and editing. Diane and I take quite a lot of pictures so the first thing I need to do is move the images onto my PC and delete all the bad ones. Then I go back and start getting more meticulous while at the same time doing some cropping and rotating. Finally, I might do some colour and brightness corrections before exporting a small selection, in a lower resolution, to use on the blog. A modicum of research suggested that Corel Aftershot would do the job. Out of the tin, this appeared to be the case. It allows you to quickly view and sort the images so I could do a first pass filter quite efficiently. A database of change information allows you to apply corrections such as resizing, exposure and colour balance without changing the original. Finally, an export function supports conversion to JPEG format while also resizing. All good.

Then I started to discover the software is disappointingly flaky. The program crashes at random intervals. Some changes to an image render it unviewable by the software. The export batch process hangs up on any thing more than a couple of images and so on. This is disappointing because Corel appear to be putting more emphasis on headline features than creating solid, reliable software. The final straw came when I got my little camera back from being repaired. This is a Canon Powershot G1X. A terrific and handy pocket camera. But Aftershot cannot read the RAW files from it. A camera profile, specific to each camera, is needed. A profile for the Powershot is not included. I searched the Corel website for a solution and was eventually passed to a “expert”. A week later, after being passed onto several different experts, I concluded that I already knew far more about Aftershot and problem of camera profiles than they did.

Back at square one, I looked at some other image processing software and have now settled on Cyberlink Photodirector. Immediately I spotted two benefits. Not only will it import images from all my cameras, but it also crashes far less often. On the downside, it has a massive emphasis on using AI to mess with your images. Interesting to play with but not what I need. So again, the rush to introduce headline features has left the rest of the application a bit inconsistent. I might even say, incoherent. It is taking some time to work out the best way to use the software for the mundane tasks of sorting, filtering, and very simple tweaking. One pet hate of mine is a confirmation dialogue box every time I want to delete a file. Are you sure? Yes! Stop asking me. An extra mouse click for each delete operation may not seem much but by the 200^th time in one afternoon it gets very irritating.

Wandering further into the incredibly beautiful Dolomite mountains we arrived at the delightful town of Cortina – “one of Italy’s most famous, fashionable and expensive ski resorts”, says Lonely Planet. Certainly, the town centre boasts shops with names like Gucci, Versace and Louis Vuitton. We gave them a wide berth. Our hotel had a balcony commanding an excellent view over the town to the Dolomite peaks beyond. We only stayed a couple of nights but enjoyed sitting out, watching the sunset on both evenings. I managed to get in a terrific day of skiing. Next day we moved on to somewhere slightly less fabulous but much more cost effective.

Hungary

February was the warmest February, for the entire world, on record. Which means in the last 175 years or so. We are on a skiing trip. Unsurprisingly, the skiing part of this trip is not going brilliantly. We have seen many washed out ski slopes and, in places, green fields where there should have been ski slopes. At times we have pondered whether we are seeing the final, declining days of European alpine skiing. Last year it was raining in Chamonix throughout January. This year there was some early snow but many of the ski areas feel like spring – which would previously have been in April.

Leaving Romania, we set out to explore Hungary. For a few hours we drove through flat wetlands. There were a few ducks and a few more geese. Then we arrived in Slovakia and felt as if we had missed out on Hungary. Slovakia had some interest in the shape of the Tata mountains, so we headed there. On the way we saw the remains of several ski resorts. All looking remarkably sad. A couple of days later we arrived at the Tatras and they are indeed magnificent mountains. We spotted a ski area that appeared to still be operating but the weather was not very nice and we were still hoping to see some more of Hungary.

Our last night in Slovakia was spent at a castle that had been converted into a hotel. This was great fun and not expensive. The corridor walls were festooned with the heads from numerous dead animals. Fortunately, there were none in our room although the large boar’s head right outside the door was a bit alarming.

Heading towards Budapest, we crossed the Danube by ferry. At 2,850 km the Danube is Europe’s second longest river, after the Volga. It rises in the Black Forest, heading east and south to the Black Sea. Commercial river traffic can travel between Bavaria and the Black Sea. With the opening of the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, vessels can travel all the way to the North Sea forming a major trade route. Back in the 19^th century, the Danube was regularly frozen and impassable to marine traffic. These days, less so. We saw very little traffic on the river but we do enjoy a ferry trip and this seemed like a nice way to arrive in Budapest.

In Budapest we did a couple of days of city things. We looked at a lot of buildings, rode on a Ferris wheel, avoided museums and Diane found a new kind of ice cream in a cake. There are some amazing buildings in the city including the massive parliament building. We wandered around and tried to get interested in them but the overcast, grey, damp and generally dull weather gave the whole city a bit of a sober feel. The day we left it, the warm sun came out and it felt like summer. While this was pleasant, it also seemed unlikely that there was going to be much more skiing left. As best I could tell there was still some snow at some of the higher altitude resorts so we set off to find some.

Romania

We headed to Romania on a whim. We had never been there before and there was a small chance of skiing. Good enough. A day’s drive through Croatia and then we had to make a decision. Car insurance covered Serbia but not Bosnia. It is possible to buy insurance on the border, but we figured it would be easier just to avoid Bosnia. Driving through Serbia was an easy day, and the border checks were painless. Arriving in Romania, the guard was mostly interested in talking about skiing. Our first stop was the city of Timișoara, first European city to be lit by electric streetlamps in 1884. A fact still celebrated by displays of lighting across some of the streets. Timișoara boasts some large public squares surrounded by restaurants and bars. Wonderful to wander around in the evening and we found some good food as well. We were impressed by the magnificently lit city centre and also by a large statue of Atlas in the entrance lobby of our hotel.

Next stop was Castelul Corvinilor (Corvins’ Castle). Romania has an awful lot of castles. We felt obliged to visit a few. It was cold and raining when we arrived. The castle looked good from the outside. Inside it proved to be rather baren and chilly. Renovations were in progress. Areas were roped off. A few workmen were standing around smoking and looking cold. One of them examined a stone in a rather desultory way before putting it down and wandering off. A suit of armour in the corner of one hall caught my interest although, like me, it had a rust problem and probably creaked. We looked around for other interesting things but found little. We paid extra for entrance to the medieval torture display. Gruesome models of people being dismembered, disembowelled and generally filleted in various unhygienic and probably terminal ways. I imagine schoolboys would like this sort of thing. It was still drizzling as we checked out the souvenir shops and then trudged back to the car.

A day later I was standing in the lift queue at the ski area just outside of Lupeni. It was foggy but this time the was no getting above it. Fortunately, as the day progressed, the cloud lifted. At lunchtime two more lifts right at the top of the hill were opened along with several more ski slopes. There had been a bit of fresh snow. The pistes were still a bit thin but I enjoyed the skiing. Just before my last run down there were a few nice views of the valley.

We headed for Brașov in the heart of Transylvania. A rather circuitous route took us through the mountains where we met dogs and a cheese man. The cheese man was selling a selection of local made dairy produce out of the back of his van. Communication was limited but sufficient. He gave us various taster pieces and we indicated the ones we liked. In fact, we needed to restrict ourselves to the cheese that we really liked. It all tasted rather good. Especially the smoked cheeses. The dogs mostly live by the road and often appear to own a layby. They are quite peaceful and will only approach cautiously. We took some food with us for the dogs. They appreciated this and we like to feel we could do a little bit to help them. There are dogs running around all over the place in Romania. Many of them appear to be free spirits but very few look malnourished or mistreated. We have noticed that a lot of dogs are owned but live outside and are not tied up. I quite like this. You can see that the dogs are generally well balanced and happy.

Brașov was busy with tourists. We mingled with them and explored the streets. There are some nice buildings here. The gothic Black Church is possibly the largest of its kind in eastern Europe. Popularly, it became black during the great fire of 1689 but the reality is that the dark colouration comes from much more recent air pollution. The church houses the biggest bell in Romania – all 6.3 tonnes of it. I read that the best way to see Brașov was to take the Tâmpa Cable Car to the top of Tâmpa mountain. Sadly, it was not running so we mooched around in the town which is still not a bad way to see the place.

Time for another castle. This time, Bran Castle, famously marketed as Dracula’s Castle. There is no good reason for this. Bram Stoker, author of the original Dracula story is unlikely to have known the castle. His description of Count Dracula’s lair bears little resemblance to Bran Castle. None the less, this is another of those places made famous through literary fiction. Think Reichenbach Falls (Sherlock Holmes), Kings Cross Station (Harry Potter) and The Pond in Central Park (Catcher in the Rye). Around the castle is a roaring trade in souvenirs and other tat. I hoped to find a Dracula sticker but the only one I saw was rubbish. Plenty of fridge magnets but I do not own a fridge. We paid to go inside the castle. It was more interesting than Corvin’s Castle but also packed with people, many of whom were coughing far more than seemed healthy to me.

A couple of hours later we were looking for somewhere to warm up some soup for lunch and came across the medieval Rupea Fortress. A magnificent fortress on a hill. It has been renovated to some extent and commands terrific views across the town below. There were only a handful of people here and just one, small, souvenir stall. We enjoyed looking around and then had soup and bread in the car park.

Salina Turda sounds like something a bit dubious to English speakers. It is in fact a salt mine near the town of Turda. Mining finished, after nearly 900 years, in 1932. Since then, it has been turned into a tourist attraction. Salina Turda was ranked in 2013 by Business Insider as among the “25 hidden gems around the world that are worth the trek”. It is interesting in places but redevelopment, with a strong focus on tourist attraction, has sent it off into what seems to me a strange direction. The car park is expensive. Entry is expensive. There is a reduction for seniors but only if you are in possession of a Romanian pensioner certificate. Once inside I found the old salt mine bits interesting. Here we have stalactites and stalagmites made of salt. The main chamber is impressively large. The strata and mining techniques combine to create interesting patterns on the walls. Then things get strange. You can descend in a lift 90m to the bottom of the main chamber. Here you will find the ubiquitous souvenir shop. Also, a miniature golf course, some billiard tables, a Ferris wheel, a small arena and a boating pond. All of which you must pay extra for. Assuming you really want to descend into the depths of the earth to play miniature golf.

Our last stop in Romania was the Scărișoara Ice Cave. We have been into caves in ice before, usually inside a glacier. This is a limestone cave with a glacier inside it. Very strange. The entrance is a steep 50m descent down steps into the main chamber, about 100 m across and full of ice. The public can walk around this on a rather rickety wooden walkway. Here we have stalactites and stalagmites made of ice. They are quite fragile and fall off occasionally. Fortunately, they only take a few weeks to grow back unlike the calcite type which can take hundreds of years.

We liked Romania. Caves and castles. Dogs and a lot of rubbish. I mean, an awful lot of rubbish. And a little bit of skiing. Next stop is Hungary.

Slovenia

We arrived in Slovenia on a warm, sunny afternoon. We came over the Wurzenpass from Austria and descended the lovely road down the valley side towards Podkoren. On the other side of the valley were a few ski slopes. A perfect looking picnic spot in the sun was irresistible, so we stopped and cooked up some lunch. We have a little gas stove that is increasingly finding use at lunchtime. Often, I am re-heating soup or boiling up some pasta. Something quick and easy. This time it was cous-cous with a harissa sauce made from left-overs a couple of days ago. Sitting there, in the warm sunshine, it seemed unlikely that we were going to find much more skiing.

The rest of the afternoon was a relaxed and picturesque drive past the tourist town of Bled and into the centre of the national park hosting the Vogel ski area. We stayed at a small apartment in the town of Bohinjska Bistrica. There are many apartments like this, built specifically for rental. It makes an excellent alternative to a hotel. You get a space to yourself and a few basic facilities. Ideal for people, like us, that would mostly prefer to cook for ourselves. Possibly a good bet for small families or groups friends. Whatever the reasons, these apartments appear to be becoming more popular than conventional hotels.

Next morning, I abandoned Diane and drove a few kilometres to the cable car at the end of the valley. It was a foggy morning but cold and frosty. The venerable and modest sized cable car brought back warm, comfortable memories of my early days skiing in Switzerland. The younger me found it almost unbearably exciting as the cabin set off on its trip from the ordinary valley floor to the extraordinary and vertiginous mountains. Obviously, I am older, more experienced and far less likely to get excited these days but in fact, as we rose above the valley cloud and a clear, sharp vista of snowcapped peaks unveiled itself, I still got that old twinge of elation and wonder. The entire day proved to be visually spectacular. Clouds rolled over the mountain ridges in a thick, viscous wave at about the same height as the top ski lift. At times we were enveloped in thick fog but mostly we were just above it, looking down on swirling clouds. The skiing could not be described as spectacular. The slopes were limited and not particularly challenging. However, it was still great fun. There were no queues. The views were terrific, and, to my delight, there was an old, one-man chair lift. This took you to the very highest point on the mountain and felt remarkably precipitous. I had an excellent day and was a happy, if very tired, skier by the time I got back to the car.

The day afterwards, Diane and I explored the town and made plans for other things to do in Slovenia. There are many caves here. Also, castles. First, we drove over a mountain pass to the south. This was not only fun, but we also stumbled across another ski area that looked promising for another time. Then we passed a sign indicating a castle and a cave. Ideal. A short way down the road we found a car park and small tower. The tower was disappointingly closed so after walking around it we set off to find the cave. A short walk up a river brought us to the bottom of a deep valley that ended in steep cliffs with a sizeable river emerging from a cavernous entrance. This suddenly got much more interesting. We had brought our headtorches so, feeling pleased with ourselves for this forward planning, we advanced along the walkway into the cave. We found an enormous cavern containing a large lake. This had been dammed to draw off a supply for a water wheel a little way outside of the cave. At the back of the chamber was a locked gate barring further progress but even so, we felt comfortably happy with our discovery. I spent a little time messing with the camera to capture the moment. Eventually, we retraced our steps to the car and continued on the castle and cave journey.

Predjama Castle is a Renaissance castle built within a cave mouth. It is a marvellous looking castle tucked under an enormous cliff. There are many stories about the place but also, it looks like the sort of place that there should be many stories about. It has features in a Jackie Chan film and also Season 3 of The Witcher (which we have not watched yet, but we are planning to soon).

Not far from the castle is Postojna Cave. This caught me completely by surprise. I had not done any research and was unprepared when we were herded down a short tunnel and onto a train. The cave is 24 km long, second longest in Slovenia, and one of the top tourist sites. We were there on a damp and gloomy weekday in February, but even so there were plenty of visitors. Only about 5 km are accessible to the public. The train takes you much of the way and then there is over an hour walking through a succession of enormous chambers with the most extensive and amazing display of speleothems (secondary mineral deposits) I have ever seen.

Back in my younger and dafter days, I used to be quite keen on caving. Spent many cold, muddy but happy weekends crawling through limestone holes in the Yorkshire Dales and elsewhere. This cave, the Postojna Cave, is bigger and contains more flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. that all the caves I have ever been in put together. This is no exaggeration. The scale of the place is utterly staggering. As a show cave the amount of work that has gone into the place is also impressive. Not only a whole railway system but also thousands of lights, miles of concrete walkways, bridges, railings and as we discovered at the end of the trip, the worlds only underground post office. The final chamber, called the Concert Hall, is known for its exceptional acoustics. Symphony orchestras, octets, and a variety of soloists perform here to an audience of up to 10,000 people. Deep inside the cave, away from the chaos of the tourists, lives an aquatic salamander. The Olm or Proteus (Proteus anguinus) is the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe. It is blind, snake-like, 30 cm long, lacks pigmentation and has three toes. Stuffed toys of Olm are available in the underground post office.

Austria

First thing we did when we crossed from Italy to Austria was to go to Switzerland. The Riesa Pass brought us close to the village of Samnaun, a village where we spent a lot of time during the Covid lockdown. Although technically in Switzerland, Samnaun is mostly accessible from Austria and, for some reason, is a duty-free enclave. Very good place to buy alcohol and ski equipment. I wanted a new pair of skis. While travelling in Baloo, I had limited myself to a single set of skis. These are some wide, long, all-mountain skis. Terrific for fresh snow and skiing off piste, less good for the steep, icy pistes they appear to favour in Austria. I had done my research and knew what I wanted. Much shorter, narrower skis, necked in the middle so they will bite into the snow and help me properly carve turns. We looked in a couple of shops and then there they were. The skis of my dreams. Waiting patiently for me in the basement of the third shop. And at a healthy, duty-free price. We also bought some alcohol.

Back to Austria and the village of See. This shares the same valley as Ishgyl, one of the larger and busier ski resorts. See, however, is much smaller, quieter, more peaceful and altogether more our type of place. We got lucky with an apartment literally just across the road from the ski lift. I had a couple of terrific days skiing. The weather was a bit mixed but some flurries of fresh snow helped the state of the slopes and one morning I even found some fresh powder to play in. On the second day, Diane came with me on the ski bus to Kappl, a little further down the valley. This is another small ski area covered by the same lift ticket. The sun broke through the clouds from time to time and the views were terrific. We met up at the top lift station for lunch.

Next stop was Sölden. This a large, popular area at the end of a valley. The small, mountain road over the pass at the end of the valley is closed in the winter. I had booked a couple of nights at a hotel that appeared to be part the way up this road. The Hotel Silbertal runs a shuttle service from village and advises that to drive there yourself requires a 4×4 and snow chains. I found this irresistible, and we did end up using the snow chains. The hotel is right at the end of the ski area but high up so that you can ski in and out. We watched the sun set over the mountains at the end of the valley while sipping wine on the balcony. This all seemed perfect to me and to round off my pleasure the food proved to be excellent. Vegetarians are well catered for. The cooking was imaginative and tasty. The downside to this wonderful place was the cost. We kept our visit to a couple of nights in between which I had a long, hard day of skiing.

Driving further west, past Innsbruck and Mayrhofen, took us to the village of Bramberg am Wildkogel. Another smaller ski area and a return to the more modest apartments that we usually stay in. There had been a worrying lack of fresh snow for the previous week and the weather continued to warm up. As we arrived it was raining, clearing the last remnants of snow away from the valley. For the next two days it rained. I am quite keen on skiing but not so keen as to get intentionally soaked in the process. Anyhow, rain makes the snow slushy, heavy and difficult. Even up on the mountain tops it was raining, not snowing. We had a drive round. Visited the bottom of the Großglockner pass – also closed in winter.

We moved northwards past Kitzbuhl to Niederau. Our good friend Tim has a cousin who rents apartments here. We got a deal on a nice, cosy place for a week plus some excellent local advice and schnapps on arrival. The rain had passed, the sun came out and most of the week was warm and pleasant. The trouble is that warm and pleasant is not ideal for ski slopes. There are three small ski areas easily accessible along the valley. I enjoyed exploring them and Diane came along to take in the views. But all the time the snow was getting thinner and icier. It began to feel like spring skiing. This can be fun. Skiing in the warm sun with views across green fields. It does not last too long though before the snow is gone completely. Last year we had spent much of January in Chamonix vainly waiting for snow. Here it was looking like the ski season would end in February. I started to wonder, with climate change apparently starting to really kick in now, has the halcyon age of alpine skiing passed?

On this rather gloomy note we started making plans for a bit more road tripping and a bit less skiing. The gloom was emphasized by clouds rolling in and yet more rain. We headed for Slovenia. On the way we stopped for a day at Gastein. I skied at a couple of the areas there. The first, high area at Sportgastein, was pleasant if a bit crowded and limited to one lift. The second area, more comprehensively served from the main town was awful. The slopes were in terrible condition. Very icy with piles of slush that threaten to trip you up. It was Sunday and the place was very crowded as well. To the point where it started to feel a bit dangerous. Too many out of control skiers on a small icy slope. Diane came up to the restaurant at the top of the mountain. I not only met her there but came down on the gondola with her. Normally, I would always ski down but this time it really did not seem like a clever idea. Next morning we took a car-train through the Tauern Railway Tunnel to Mallnitz before heading south-east to Slovenia.