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Skiing around Lake Achensee - a week at Pertisau

By Janet Cochrane

When we arrived at Pertisau it was wonderful to see so much snow, since for most of the journey from Munich there had been just a light powdering. Pertisau is pleasingly spread out on sloping meadows above Lake Achensee, at the foot of the Karwendel Mountains. The 4-star Hotel Wiesenhof too was a very pleasant revelation – my expectations had already been high, but the facilities and welcoming atmosphere proved even better than I had imagined. It is also very well located on the outskirts of the village but no distance from the ski slopes: in fact you can ski right from the door of the hotel.

My eight-year-old son and I were soon kitted out with cross-country skis and shoes – their lightness and flexibility coming as a pleasant surprise after the 'encased in concrete' weight of the downhill type which I'd tried on another holiday (and failed to make much progress with). We took lessons with a group of other beginners who were mostly German-speaking, but the instructor spoke enough English to be able to show us the basics. As ever, the instructor's technique was enviably smooth and balanced, while the rest of us swayed about (or fell about) with varying degrees of clumsiness. We had three two-hour lessons, and for the rest of the holiday spent time skiing along the practice slopes near the village and, at the end of the week, venturing further afield on the blue and red runs. These have several 'loipe' (parallel tracks) going up and several coming down. It was heartening to see people of all ages, shapes and sizes on the tracks, some moving even more slowly than we were (and falling down just as often). Fastest were the skinny young men who whizzed along with the graceful 'skating' technique over purpose-made flattened tracks next to the parallel 'loipe'. When we got tired we took off our skis to walk uphill on prepared paths next to the ski tracks, and as the boots were so comfortable this was no hardship.

When we weren't skiing we walked round the village, with its shops, or relaxed at the hotel. Based around an old farmhouse, the new parts of the hotel have been superbly fitted out with carved wood and comfortable furnishings. There were various public rooms where people congregated to chat and play games – there were several board games available, and a cosy open fire. My son and other little boys of various nationalities spent several evenings swapping euros and persuading the hotel receptionist to look through her till, trying to collect full sets of the different eurozone coins with their national symbols. The dining room is elegant with good food; menus are in German, but there was always a member of the friendly staff on hand to help out when we didn't understand what was on offer.

To soothe the aches of the unfamiliar movements of skiing we used the hotel swimming pool most evenings and explored the superb sauna complex, which has a fascinating variety of saunas and Roman baths. I tried one of the special treatments on offer – a 'steinoil' bath, where you wallow in a blackish, soapy substance which is supposed to be very good for you. While you wallow, a craggy-faced Austrian miner (who seems disconcertingly present in the room, although he is actually on a giant video screen) explains how the 'steinoil', a mineral oil which comes only from the area around Achensee, is mined and processed. (The treatment clearly has its adherents, but I found the experience interesting rather than invigorating; personally I was not keen on smelling of oil for days afterwards!)

As well as the cross-country trails, there are a few downhill slopes on the mountain just across the road from the hotel, reached by a beautiful journey in the Karwendel cable car: this is well worth the trip just for the view. But the highlight for both my son and me was realising how quickly we had mastered the techniques of cross-country skiing. Although to start with we found the downhill bits of the cross-country tracks rather daunting, by the end of the week we were skiing both up and down quite happily – it would be nice to say we did so without falling over, but at least we never travelled fast enough for falling over to be painful! It was wonderful to feel competent enough to go right up the valleys radiating out from Pertisau to the foot of the high mountains, enjoying the snowy forests and scenery in as natural and easy a way as if we were on foot, with our trips punctuated by hot chocolate and soup in the well-placed cafés. On our last day we skied 18 kilometres – a great achievement for us. Now, we can't wait to go again!

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