Great skiing for intermediates, fantastic night life, brilliant resort
Disadvantages:
Some queuing for lifts, crowded buses
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I have just come back from a fabulous week's skiing in Kitzbuhel. I had visited the resort over 10 years ago and was interested to see how much I could remember and how much had changed.
Kitzbuhel is a world famous resort situated in the Tirol, Austria. It is a charming place with cobblestone streets and painted buildings. The resort itself is not very high lying at only 2,600 feet above sea level but still has a pretty good snow record, we were really lucky as all the pistes were open and snow conditions were truly excellent.
We booked the holiday with Cristal holidays, flying from Gatwick to Salzburg on a Thomsonfly charter flight. the transfer from the airport took about an hour and a half and we duly arrived at the Sonnenhof hotel, a short walk from the town centre. It was too late to collect our skis and boots on the first evening so we sampled the local beers and visited the casino. The casino has a good deal in that you get 25 euros worth of chips for 21 euros as an introductory offer.
The ski hire fitting took a long time and we didn't get on to the slopes until lunchtime. This wasn't too much of a problem as the visibilty wasn't very good. There is a tremendous choice of pistes available, particularly for the intermediate level skier, 260 lifts covering 420 miles. If you enjoy wide open motorways then you will love this resort.
We particularly enjoyed going over to the Kitzbuheler Horn which provides a fabulous natural snowbowl including a time trial section. On the other side of the valley there is a ski safari, marked with an elephant symbol and offers the chance to cruise the entire ski area from the Hahnenkamm to Pass Thurn and Breitmoos. A new 3S cableway permits you to do this tour in either direction without any interuption. The Penglestein area was another favourite of ours with some wonderful red runs.
The trails were mostly pretty well groomed and there were lots of excellent mountain restaurants with plenty of choice. I always like to try the local specialities and can recommend a dish called Tirolgrostl which is basically a fry up with potatoes, meat, herbs with a fried egg on top - not very healthy I know but delicious aand filling after fresh air and exercise.
We also ventured further afield getting the local ski bus to Jochberg along the valley in order to avoid the queues. You can also get an extension to your lift pass to include the neighbouring resort of Westerndorf although there is plenty of skiing for most people in the Kitzbuhel area.
There are plenty of other things to do in Kitzbuhel if you don't like skiing, you can ride in a horse drawn carriage through the town, swim in the aquarina, shopping or sampling the excellent Austrian cakes and pastries. I would definitely recommend our hotel, the Sonnenhof, a traditional establishment run by Wolfgang and his efficient and friendly staff. The rooms were spacious and comfortable and the food good.
In terms of cost this holiday cost over £700 so it is not cheap but we did book well in advance and I imagine that you could get a much better deal if you were prepared to book at the last minute. Anyway, if you are looking for a great skiing holiday next season you could do a lot worse than visit Glitzy Kitz.
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