8 Te Travel Guide


Promotional Content • Saturday 25 September 2021 The inside guide to Salzburg for skiers


Arguably the world’s most beautiful ski hub city, Salzburg features mountain-backed streets, twin cathedrals, gilded bars and cosy restaurants, while the sounds of local boy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are never far away. There’s plenty of fun to be had on and off the pistes in Austria’s fourth-largest city. Words: Nick Dalton


year-round, but it comes into its own in winter. Not only is Salzburg barely an hour’s drive from dozens of ski resorts, including Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn and much smaller, lesser-known gems like gorgeous Hochkönig, but this is a ski hub city that’s well worth pausing in for a quick serving of stellar sights. Not to be missed are the hilltop Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Mozart’s Birthplace and Mozart residence museums. salzburg.info While there’s plenty of traditional-


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style beer-quaffing to be had — try 17th-century Augustiner Bräustübl, Austria’s biggest tavern, a warren of halls where the beer is served in stone mugs — apres ski is rather different. Case in point: Hangar-7. Housing the transport collection of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, this futuristic, airfoil-shaped building is also home to Ikarus restaurant, headed up by a different, globally renowned chef each month, and a Champagne bar dangling from the roof. augustinerbier.at hangar-7.com If you prefer your cocktails


complemented by a Mozart string quartet, head to Mirabell Palace’s Marble Hall. It’s the best music in town, unless you fancy swapping your bobble hat for a bow tie, in which case, hit town during concert- packed Mozart Week (27 January to 6 February, 2022). salzburg-palace- concerts.com mozarteum.at


The skiing Te Salzburg region offers a symphony of options for skiers, from day trips and a week of serious downhilling to a ski/city twin break, with Ski amadé stealing the show.


s the birthplace of Mozart, this stately city on the northern edge of the Austrian Alps is revered


Saalbach landscape PHOTOGRAPH: SAALBACH TOURIST OFFICE


Five areas are included on its one lift pass: Salzburger Sportwelt (big, ideal for intermediates), Schladming- Dachstein (lively town, glacier skiing), Gastein (set around spa town Bad Gastein), Hochkönig (easy-going slopes, the lofty High King Mountain ski area), and Grossarltal (cosy, suits youngsters). In total, 475 miles of piste are on offer. skiamade.com Best for easy outings, Snow


Space Salzburg has a free shuttle bus that connects to several cities, as well as the village of Flachau, which is lift-linked to Wagrain. Te mountain ridge-hugging Panorama Link gondola takes visitors to previously standalone Zauchensee/Flachauwinkl.


Tere’s plenty more, including Zell


am See, a lakeside town, and the 3K K-onnection cable-car, connecting neighbouring Kaprun to the heights of the Kitzsteinhorn Glacier. zellamsee-kaprun.com Obertauern, one of Austria’s most


snow-sure ski towns, immortalised by Te Beatles film Help!, has pistes up to 7,588ft, while Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn links four resorts in one of Austria’s biggest ski areas (170 miles of slopes), including a day-long valley loop. obertauern.com saalbach.com Don’t miss Untersberg, a dizzying


cable-car that heads up a city-suburb mountain for a five-mile off-piste path down. untersbergbahn.at


SKI KIT WITH A CONSCIENCE


Until recently, ski kit tended to be heavily dependent on unsustainable materials, but a growing awareness of climate change and the environmental costs of production means things are changing. Words: Abigail Butcher


Energy, water, plastic: the unholy trinity traditionally used to make winter sports kit. Add to this the use of hazardous chemicals (PFCs and PTFEs used for water- and wind-proofing) and scant recycling, and you have a woefully unsustainable industry. Yet attitudes are changing; ethical


and environmentally friendly manufacturing has been brought to the fore by organisations like Greenpeace, nonprofit conservation initiatives like Protect Our Winters and pioneering companies such as Patagonia and Picture Organic. With the ski industry at the sharp


end of climate change — melting glaciers, unusual weather, shorter seasons, microplastics and PFCs in the mountains — brands are transforming the way goods are


produced and disposed of. Rab and Amundsen Sports, for example, make jackets with down sourced from old pillows and duvets. Meanwhile, entire product lines from Yuki Treads are made from recycled materials, while Haglöfs sells factory seconds rather than binning them. Companies including Maier Sports,


Vaude and Parámo offer clothing- recycling schemes, and ski boot maker Tecnica has launched Recycle Your Boots: buy a new pair and the company recycles your old ones (of any brand) into new ski products. Houdini Sportswear and YKK are exploring the use of digital zips to track an item’s lifecycle. And to breathe new life into old kit, Nikwax offers a range of wash-in products that come in recycled bottles. Launched last year, EcoSki is


another sustainability pioneer, offering upcycling, recycling, repair and rental options.


Tis is a preview of content from National Geographic Traveller (UK) November 2021 issue, on sale 7 October. To subscribe or find out more visit nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel


Tyrolean speck ham on sale at a market PHOTOGRAPH: AWL IMAGES


Beyond the pistes Salzburg has lots of Christmas markets, while the city hills — Mönchsberg one side of the river, Kapuzinerberg the other — offer winter hikes that are never too far from a cafe or bar. Ski amadé has 450 miles of


cross-country tracks, including Dachstein, the world’s longest glacier trail (10 miles) and Salzburger Sportwelt’s 37-mile Tauern-Loipe, which connects six resorts. It also has 28 toboggan runs, with plenty more elsewhere, almost all with bars within reach. Tese include Gasthof Kronreith, set above Hochkönig’s Maria Alm. gasthof-kronreith.at


Hochkönig also unites skiing and


food on Culinary Königstours. Tese include Home Cooking, a three- course lunch across three huts and six peaks. hochkoenig.at For something more soothing,


the Gastein Valley is a wonderland of warming waters, whether at Felsentherme, an indoor hot pool carved into the rock with open-air hot springs, or Alpentherme, a collection of water parks, including one for families with warm waterslides. alpentherme.com felsentherme.com First published in the Winter Sports 2020 guide, distributed with the Nov/ Dec 2020 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK)


THREE TO BUY: Salomon S/MAX eSkin Nordic ski


Te core of this ski is constructed with 45% recycled polyurethane foam derived from recycled plastic bottles, and the eSkin technology doesn’t require wax (a snow contaminant). All packaging is Forest Stewardship Council-certified and made without glue or plastic at a factory that runs entirely on renewable energy. £400, salomon.com


Spektrum templet POW goggles


Te plastic parts of these 90% bio-based goggles are made using plant-based polymers and recycled polyester, while the straps are mainly made of hemp. A collaboration with conservation project Protect Our Winters, which receives 15% of the profits. £154. snowandrock.com


Yuki Threads Team Zip Hoodie


Tis brand’s entire outerwear line is made using recycled waste, such as plastic bottles, as well as Zelan R3, a water-repellent coating made from tree sap. Tis gender-neutral hoodie is made from 60% organic cotton and 40% recycled polyester £99, yukithreads.com


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