Lake Achensee & its Mountains

It cost us Euro74 each for the week to upgrade the Achensee Card which seemed quite expensive, but was worth-while because we used the cable cars, boats and buses so often. It is also much easier because you can change your mind as to your stop, enroute, and don't have to keep buying tickets. You can by-pass the long queues for tickets at the cable car and boat ticket offices and go straight through. We went to Tratzburg Castle and had to buy a ticket from Jenbach on the bus (which was only a couple of Euros) but, because we had had to do this as we were out of the ticket use area, we didn't think to ask if we could use our ticket to go into Tratzburg Castle. When we returned to the hotel we realised that we could have used it and thereby saved all or part of the entrance fee. It is worth a visit.

The Hotel Weisenhof is a truly exceptional base from which to explore this beautiful region. We upgraded our holiday cards at the hotel (very easy, just added to our final bill) which we would highly recommend as this gives you unlimited use of the cable cars and lake cruise. The suggested walks are excellent - we particularly enjoyed Walk 6 which was hugely rewarding with stunning views back across the lake to the Pertisau. The included map makes the multitude of walking routes available clear and easy to navigate, whilst many of the sugges routes are Grade 2 (and well worth the effort) you could choose a number of gentler or lower level routes using the map to tailor your trip fully to your personal desires.

Thank you for another excellent holiday!

We very much enjoyed this holiday, helped by the excellent weather.  The setting was lovely, the hotel was excellent, and the walks were really good - we got fitter as the week progressed and would have been helped if we had done more training beforehand.  The staff in the hotel were very helpful and all spoke excellent English.  The food was amazing.  A lovely part of the world to enjoy the mountains.

The hotel and its setting was excellent. Enjoyed the views of the lake and the mountains.

An excellent hotel – for location, service and comfort. An excellent choice of walks and good advice.

The staff at this hotel could not be more attentive. When we get there everything has been set up without even asking! Soft mattress and special pillows already done. The panoramic relaxation room is a must. Nothing like a view of mountains, a read and a snooze (in that order!).

The hotel was just as we excellent as we had remembered from a previous winter visit - food, ambience, helpfulness, facilities all fantastic. We did experience very mixed weather, and when we could see the mountain-tops they looked wonderful with fresh snow! Under these circumstances we made very good use of the upgraded holiday card, especially on the boat and cable cars. Walking and swimming (in the hotel pool!) excellent.

Nothing particular, just another GREAT Inntravel holiday. We upgraded our Visitors cards and so could use buses, boats, lifts and local train all for free - excellent value. We would hope to return to this destination again next year.

I would be more than happy to return here in due course. The hotel and the region together provide a high-quality offering.

Beautiful location with so many options to walk or cycle just outside the door - and the most amazing pool to come back to at the end of the day!

This was our second visit to Pertisau but first our first during Summer. The village enjoys an incredibly picturesque setting on the Achensee and, although busy during the day, is quiet and peaceful at night. The scenery is stunning, with mountains in all directions. The Hotel Wiesenhof could not be faulted - the room, service, facilities and food are exceptional and the staff go out of their way to be welcoming without being intrusive. The range of local activities is broad but even for those wanting only gentle walks in the local area there is a good variety. The holiday can be as strenuous or relaxing as visitors want it to be. We would strongly recommend this holiday for anyone seeking peace and quiet, mountain air, first-class (and plentiful) food, stunning scenery and an excellent hotel. We hope to return!      

The weather was generally good, but on one rather doubtful-looking day we took the bus down to Jenbach and then travelled up the Zillertalbahn to Mayrhofen. This is a good poor-weather option - the views are lovely, and Mayrhofen is a delightful little town.

We had a fantastic family holiday at Hotel Wiesenhof in Pertisau. The hotel had everything we needed and more! We enjoyed many of the walks from the Inntravel booklet and we were impressed with the level of detail in the walking notes. Thank you for such an excellent holiday - one that will be remembered for years to come.

This was a very special holiday with a fantastic hotel and beautiful scenery. The Wiesenhof provided us with a great base for walking. The rooms all have lovely views. The food there is plentiful and of a high quality. It’s also possible to make a packed lunch each day from the breakfast buffet and staff are happy to provide foil to wrap rolls etc. It was great to come back to the hotel each day after a walk, have a drink sitting in the garden and be able to swim in the pools before dinner. Without exception all staff were friendly and helpful. We used the buses several times for free with the Achensee card provided by the hotel. It’s definitely worth catching the bus from the Karwendel cable car station before it goes through the village as they do get busy. There were still lots of beautiful flowers high up in the Alpine meadows in August and we saw marmots and chamois on the Rofanspitze walk. For a change it was nice to walk up the valleys of both the Falzturntal and the Gerntal which was also very attractive. The organisation from Inntravel was also excellent.

The hotel is a real gem. The family are always around supervising the staff.  Food is very high quality and available for most of the day. You can make up a packed lunch at breakfast if you’re going walking. The Achensee card is good value for ski lifts and boat.

Beautiful walking in the clear mountain air with spectacular views, a host of wild flowers, and a welcoming hotel to return to each afternoon with a delicious evening meal and a glass or two of wine - what more could one wish for!

HIGHLIGHTS: Enjoying a warm, spicy apfelstrudel at the Wiessenbachalm (walk 2) surrounded by cows with cow bells was a feast for all the senses. On our way to the Rofanspitze (walk 5), a marmot suddenly hopped across a patch of snow then, very obligingly, sat on top of a rock so we could all get a good look at it. Enjoying a beer at the brewery in Pertisau, a golden eagle suddenly appeared over the Karwendl mountains. Loved the little animals at Falzturnalm (walk 3), the cog railway to Jenbach was great fun, as was hopping on and off the ferries. The Sixenhof museum in Achenkirch was interesting and well laid out, as was the Steinöl museum in Pertisau. Museum world was a ‘curious collection of curiosities’.

The swimming pool at the Wiesenhof was fantastic and provided a nice space to relax in both good and bad weather. We reckon we saved a fortune by upgrading our visitor cards. We thoroughly enjoyed this holiday and managed to find plenty to do despite some pretty lousy weather.

The high level walks were breathtaking.The weather was rather changeable but the wonderful food and spa fac at the hotel meant we enjoyed every day.

Excellent holiday.  Only quibbles Dalfaz walk (see above) and horse riding which was very disappointing.  A slow boring short walk for a mile and then back the same way.  Expensive for what it was. 

Romantik Hotel Wiesenhof was excellent. The setting of the Hotel, its facilities, the meals and the general atmosphere exceeded our expectations. The staff were, without exception, friendly and welcoming.

My personal highlight and achievement was walking up to the Dalfaz waterfall and on to the Dalfazalm as I've not walked this high before. The walk from Zwolferkopf to Weissenbachalm was also rather special with superb views across Lake Achensee and the valleys beyond. The Spring flowers were stunning and my friend couldn't get over how green the country was. I would encourage anyone going to Pertisau to make full use of the buses on which we free travel with the Achensee Card; they were timed to perfection and all the links worked.

Lovely hotel, looked after us so well. Really helpful. Super food, all very relaxed.

The hotel was wonderful in every respect and is to be highly recommended. If going earlier in the season, be prepared for some trickier conditions on the higher walks, which could be quite challenging.

Great hotel in a beautiful position with an attitude to service and its guests wellbeing that you will have to travel a long way to beat. Highly recommended !

The hotel was the nicest place I’ve ever stayed, anyplace in the world. I appreciate that its luxury was focused on health, not on obsequiousness. The food was fresh and made on site — including the bread, the jam, and all the baked goods. The staff was friendly and attentive. The owner was on site and involved. The spa itself was incredible — four separate saunas, two swimming pools, and a fully equipped gym. The area was stunning and the walks were beautiful. My only disappointment was that the Austrian hiking culture seems to like to pave its way into nature, so most of the walks I went on were paved or wide gravel paths and it made it harder to connect to nature. The people everywhere were friendly, the country is immaculate and everything runs on time. I would highly recommend this place to anyone who loves clean food and clean living. Inntravel was great to work with at every step along the way.

The Rofanspitze walk is outstanding. The views were breathtaking. We sat on the summit and took in the view of the surrounding mountains and felt a great sense of contentment. It was a wonderful day.

The Wiesenhof is an outstanding hotel: helpful and friendly staff, great rooms with superb views, excellent cuisine, comprehensive facilities, perfect location.

Hotel was, as ever, wonderful: friendly, competent, relaxed atmosphere; families, including those with younger children, well provided for and, for us especially, a dining room that was equivalent to eating in a really good restaurant with changing and different, super food every night.

Two essential elements delivered: delightful hotel with every facility (and four excellent meals a day) + stunning location and several splendid hikes (though some more challenging than the brochure implied - and with lower ratings than rival companies eg ATG might have given them).

We have been to the Hotel Wiesenhof four times now (both winter and summer) and it just gets better. I just love the hotel and the area - it's just perfect when the sun shines.

The only thing that is missing, is a little entertainment in the evenings either in the Hotel or the village. The service and staff are excellent.

The hotel was the highlight - lapped in luxury with outstanding food and facilities. Many other established walks in the area that can be started from the hotel with no cable car. Vertigo alerts - Rofanspitz - vertigo from cleft in rock for last 1km not just the 'outcrop' and for a vertigo sufferer this is an ideal holiday as one centre so don't have to walk anywhere and lots of non vertigo options that are high with stunning scenery. Indeed we walked over 100km over the week!

What can we say about the Hotel Wiesenhof that hasn't already been said?!  If you are feeling doubtful about what a great place it is when reading previous reviews, you will be in no doubt at all after a few days there - the atmosphere is so relaxed and all the staff are so friendly and helpful; our daughter's flight to Munich was delayed which meant she arrived after dinner, but the restaurant staff made sure they saved food for her and she was presented with starters, main course & dessert on her arrival - nothing is too much trouble for them.  We upgraded to an X-large room which was worth the extra cost I think as it was very spacious, although the ordinary room was plenty big enough too.  Lovely to have a balcony - every morning was different looking out depending on the weather.  The spa complex is huge and beautifully decorated - only slight criticism was that the pool was a little on the chilly side.  The food is excellent, both in quality and presentation, and there is so much on offer that you definitely need to be walking in order to still fit into your clothes at the end!  We thoroughly enjoyed all the walks we did; along the lake and back on the boat, up the cable car in Pertisau and the one in Maurach to walk to Rofanspitz (where we saw marmots) - very useful to be able to use the boats and cable cars to access different areas.  We also had a ride on the steam train to Jenbach (although there is not a lot to see really when you get there).  All in all, we had a brilliant time - we felt thoroughly spoilt and couldn't have asked for a better experience from a holiday.  We hope to return at some point - I think Spring would be spectacular with the wild flowers out.

Wonderful hotel, great location , great swimming pool which you should include photo of in your brochure, wonderful walking and scenery. would recommend it most hightly

Wonderful hotel, so so helpful and friendly staff all in a beautiful setting.

We had a wonderful holiday. The hotel was excellent.

A wonderful hotel and amazing swimming pool, excellent and friendly staff, excellent food, lovely location, quiet, great views and good walking available.

We enjoyed all aspects of the resort and walks on offer but we particularly would like to praise the owners and staff of the hotel who were wonderful and helpful. Please pass on that the staff are a credit to the hotel.

The swimming pool was exceptional and very welcoming after a hot days walking.

The food was varied and of excellent quality throughout. We only had to eat in twice due to weather. The weekly BBQ was a masterpiece of food and cooking!

We will be recommending this holiday to friends and family.

Everything about the hotel was excellent. Also, being situated well back from the lakeside was a big bonus as the busy/touristy lakeside boulevards and hotels would not have suited most Inntravel customers!!

The hotel gardens were beautiful and relaxing (particularly when Ave Maria was being played from the nearby church tower daily at noon and 6pm!)

We were really impressed by helpfulness and friendliness of the staff in the hotel.

The scenery was staggering and some of the views from the higher levels were magnificent.

Walk 1 was a really good introduction to the lake and the ferries and was relatively gentle.

The location of the hotel by the lakeside was excellent and staff could not be more accommodating and friendly. All aspects of the hotel were of a very high standard.

A great holiday and we recommend this trip. The walks were at the top end of Grade 2 for us, but well described. The hotel is 5* in our opinion, and we would like to see it available as a winter walking choice. The food is so very good, and the atmosphere is so warm and friendly. We upgraded the travel card and just got value from it, but it did save queuing to buy tickets tickets, which was helpful. 

Excellent hotel in a gorgeous setting. Scenery is stunning, all walking routes are well signposted and waymarked, so no danger of getting lost!

We absolutely loved every minute of our holiday. The area is stunningly beautiful and the hotel a delight. The swimming pool and spa are magnificent, and the bedrooms very spacious and comfortable, with views either of the lake or the mountains. The staff of the hotel couldn't be more friendly and welcoming, and the food is delicious and very varied. There are endless possibilities of things to do, for all levels of skill or none. One of the great joys was the profusion of flowers - e.g. masses of wild orchids. Would recommend this holiday to anyone, and will do so! 

An excellent hotel all round with exceptional food and a welcome facility both to return to cake in the late afternoon and to make up packed lunches from the breakfast buffet (take a sandwich box with you!). Good high level walking, easily accessible by cable car (well worth upgrading the free guest card into a holiday pass; saves money on cable cars and boats but more importantly saves much queueing for tickets!)

Superb location with so much to do whatever the weather. Stunning scenery, great walking routes & variety of activities. Hotel Wiesenhof first class...friendly staff, fantastic facilities, fabulous food & amazing accommodation. A great holiday location and as ever Inntravel provided first class customer service from start to finish. 

The newsletter provided by the hotel recommended a guided walk for "experienced hikers" for the Friday morning which I decided to book. The only people who turned up apart from the guide (special mention for Robert Mitterer) and myself were two young German law students. The students, apart from being polite and charming, were fluent English speakers which helped enormously as Robert had no English at all. We ended up going to the top of the Bärenkopf and the views were truly breathtaking. I would not have experienced this without taking a risk (I would not call myself an "experienced hiker"). Take a risk, you might enjoy it too. The soup with dumplings at the end of the walk was also a highlight!

Right from the moment of our arrival when we were so warmly welcomed we knew this would be a lovely holiday. The Achensee area is very beautiful with wonderful mountain and lake scenery which was enhanced by sunny weather. With easy access to the high walking routes from two cablecars, each day was filled with wonderful walking, an abundance of alpine flowers, and wonderful welcoming Alms for delicious coffee and strudel! Easy access to bus and boat made it a delight to be without a car too. June was a good time to visit as the area was fairly quiet on weekdays and several of the walks were completed as if we were the only people on the mountain. We would recommend good boots, walking poles and an ability to read a map! We walked every day, but I think the highlight was walk 7 through Steinernes Tor which gave access to quite remote and impressive mountain scenery and after a long descent to the lake an enjoyable boat ride back to Pertisau.

This was a holiday that exceeded our expectations in all respects. The Achensee area is the most beautiful region I have ever seen and this includes my many travels in New Zealand. It is a holiday that would suit both the very active young as well as the older generation. The Hotel Wiesenhof is a real delight with the staff very efficient and attentive. Food was delicious and available throughout the day. The swimming pool measures 25 meters long and heated at just under 26 degrees. This provided a wonderful way to cool off after a strenous day out.

The local buses are always prompt but only run every hour so timing is all important. The lifts into the mountains work well but what is most surprising are the inns in the mountains that offer great food and drinks at very reasonable prices. These inns seem to be everywhere and are extremely welcome. The steamers on the lake are spacious and also offer refreshments. They are well worth the experience but are much more expensive to use than the buses.

I don't think it is worthwhile trying to spend a day in Innsbruck. There is so much to enjoy locally. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes but if you are a shopper you will be disappointed. There are very few and the odd clothes shop charges a fortune. The old fashioned craft shop has disappeared. There is only ghastly tourist bric a brac on sale.

Everything that was organised went according to plan. The upgrade to 1st class on the train from Innsbruck to Zurich was very much appreciated. Our only problem was, when we arrived in Jenbach our transport to the hotel wasn't there. Going back to an email many months before, I noticed that it said to contact the hotel about an hour out of Jenbach. This should have been stated on the itinerary page in the booklet. This would have prompted me to tell you that we would not have been able to do this as we only use Facetime and whatsApp when we are away. Not being able to speak German, it was dificult to explain to the ticket man at the station, who kindly phoned the hotel, who sent a taxi. Unfortunately, we had to pay for the taxi, as normally the owner of the hotel collects the guests. This may be a situation with other clients as well. Other than this problem, we would definitely recommend Inntravel as we were recommended to you by our friends.

Well worth taking the cable car from Maurach and doing some of the high level walks, wonderful views.

Beautiful setting, lovely hotel, good range of walks. Definitely worth upgrading travel pass - being able to hop on buses/boat/cable car was really helpful.

The hotel was excellent. Hotel car to and from Jenbach Train Station was very welcome. Wide variety of food at breakfast with foil offered to customers who wished to make up rolls with fillings and unlimited fresh fruit for a picnic. Excellent swimming pool for a wet day. Convenient location for catching buses and the boat on the lake. Not sure whether the extra cost of the Holiday Card was worthwhile because low cloud on most days restricted our use of the cableways.

One area we think it would be helpful to provide more information about is boarding the OEBB intercity bus. The bus itself was fabulous and we left our booked seats to go upstairs where the view was superb. However, we had a tense time once we got out of the train at Udine, tiring to work out where to catch the bus. The station staff were unusually unhelpful and it was as if they had never heard of the bus. There was no helpful signage and there were other bus depots over the road from the station. However, it did just show up at the station (on time) and we just got on it and it just went, so all ended well. But it would have been good to have a specific instruction like, 'stand in front of the station on the left hand end looking out from inside the station and just wait, it will come!' Or something similar. But this was a minor issue compared to the very good bookings we had and they way it all worked out. Thank you so much for this!

Meissen was wonderful as were the Zwinger and the Augartenmuseum in terms of the story of the development of porcelain in Europe, and I believe there is also a porcelain manufacturing works with tours in Berlin.

The Hotel Weisenhof is the best place we have ever stayed and no one should go for less than a week!

We really valued being able to create our own individual holiday from the several strands that Inntravel provide in the area we wanted to visit. We started with a city add on in Munich, followed by a train journey to do 5 out of 7 nights of the Lake Achensee walking holiday and then a longer train journey to Vienna for another city add on. 

We have enjoyed quite a number of Inntravel's city breaks over a number of years and the standard and location of the hotels has always been very good. However, there was something about the Hotel Torbrau in Munich which made it my personal favourite. The reception staff were exceptionally friendly and helpful and went the second step to be so. We enjoyed eating in the restaurant in the evenings. The food was good, especially the salads. Munich has a comfortable feel as a city although you have to take care not to be mown down by cyclists! We had a lovely walk, on a wettish day, around the Englischer Garten, referred to in the city walking notes. Sitting in a pavement cafe in Marienplatz on a Saturday afternoon was a relaxing experience. It was populated mainly by locals who could be identified by having turned to their winter clothes following a sudden downturn in temperature by about 15 degrees! We then climbed 300+ steps up the tower of the church in the square (not the Frauenkirche) to have a really spectacular view of the city.

Our experience of Lake Achensee and Hotel Wiesenhof echoes that which we read in peoples' reviews before going. It was absolutely beautiful and the hotel was far beyond any criticism. We actually arrived on a cold wet Sunday afternoon, with the first snow of winter on the mountains (in early September!), and my first reaction was to wonder why on earth we were there as we wandered around fairly deserted streets in our warmest clothes. By the time we left, that feeling was a distant memory! The weather was certainly mixed but the varying light, cloud formations and a perfect rainbow seen from a boat were all amazing. The walking was good. One particular tip is to beware of walk 5 in wet weather conditions. We had to turn back as we came across a flooded stream which wouldn't have presented a challenge to men with long legs but it defeated me, particularly as it was an out and back walk and the thought of risking it twice was several, wet, steps too far! However as we sat eating our picnic at that point, with no habitation or people in sight, just complete quiet (and the snow) it felt like a special time so that completing the walk didn't really matter.  

We particularly enjoyed walk 2, and another magical moment was eating apple strudel at the Weissenbachalm farmhouse, looking at the cows.

I would reiterate the tip given by a lady previously, about taking lunch boxes for the picnics supplied by the hotel. We did and they were very useful.

One tip which no one had mentioned before is about the local buses which are very handy but also extremely overcrowded as they are not frequent enough and are very well used by local people for shopping trips. The bus comes into the village and stops next to the cable car station which is the nearest bus stop as the walking notes say. It then goes on a 10 minute drive round the village, picking up locals at various stops before arriving back at the cable car station where it picks up again, by which time it is standing room only. The timetable gives both times for the cable car stop. It is therefore well worth going 10 minutes early and getting on the first time. The tour round the village is quite interesting too.

Our overall experience of bus, boat and train travel on this holiday was that the concept of queuing doesn't seem quite as accepted as here!

We also thoroughly enjoyed Hotel Kaiserhof in Vienna. The city walking notes are very informative and give a good overview of what the city offers. Like Munich, it feels a safe city to walk about in. We enjoyed the cafe in the hotel and had a light evening meal there too when we didn't want the effort of going out. We had 2 very enjoyable evening meals at Cafe Museum (mentioned in the notes). We enjoyed the literary associations it has. There was also a very good cross section of mainly local diners so it was good for people watching. It is very handy for the hotel, being just the other side of Karlsplatz. One tip which the notes don't mention is that there is a very large subway running underneath Karlsplatz (linked to the station) with various exits. Using it avoids much crossings of roads.

We also ate at Restaurant Entler (mentioned in the notes) but didn't have a particularly good experience there. The most generous interpretation is that there was a language barrier. This seemed unusual compared to everywhere else we went in all the 3 locations. The effect is that we ended up eating, and paying, more than we wanted to.

If you like galleries, the little Albertina, mentioned in the walking tour, is really interesting. It is much less busy than some of the others and has a potted history of art which follows through all the rooms. I learnt a lot, especially about the Expressionists.

By complete contrast, the Schönbrunn Zoo is huge fun. It has a range of big animals and giant pandas. It promotes conservation and the animals have large living spaces. It is also a pleasant garden type environment to walk around. 

All in all, this was a hugely varied holiday which did feel "slow" in the sense of Inntravel's philosophy, despite it being also very active and full of things to see, experience and learn. We tried to capture moments, some of which I have described. This felt much more important than seeing everthing. We may well return to all three places. We might even get better weather next time but that really didn't matter very much.

We enjoyed all the hikes, in some cases extending them, even though we had 3 days of heavy rain. The hotel was fantastic.....facilities, food, and service were excellent. We upgraded to an extra-large room, overlooking the lake, and it was well worth it.