So we have just returned back from Saalbach where we had a great week in the snow and mountains.

Last year just Laurence , Dermot and myself went as Paul went with his son Adam to Bachera, Spain.

This year it was Laurence, Paul and David Snell (who replaced Dermot on this trip). I met David last year in Bad Gastein where I was skiing with Alex and Louise and I thought straight away that David would be a great person to join our trip for this year.

The Flight and Coach trip to the Hotel.

We will all meet at Manchester’s terminal 2 at 6:30 am for a 9:20 am flight. Laurence had set off from Glasgow in the wee hours of the night and he arrived at the airport very early so he had lots of time to have an expensive breakfast. Paul had come to my house via taxi and we both arrived together at 6:30. David arrived just after myself and Paul and once through check-in and security we teamed up with Laurence ready for our flight to Salzberg.

The first part of their journey was fine and we flew from Manchester to Salzburg. At Salzberg they were greeted by their chalet manager ( Carol ) and then by bus for the 90 minute coach trip up to chatlet Christina in Saalbach.

The Chatlet Cristina

The chalet is of course run by Ski Miquel and we were looked after by the Ski Miquel team for the whole week.

This was my and Laurence’s second visit to Saalbach and it really had not changed much from my last visit. The Christina chatlet offers a good degree of comfort but on this visit the decor looked a bit tired and slightly battered in appearence. The lounge area is comfortable but again could really do with some form of refurb.

Laurence and Paul shared room 1 which was on the ground floor and I shared room 5 with David which was situated on the first floor.

So the room was adequate and comfortable but not amazing.

The lounge area, bar and dining area were also good. Breakfast was as usual a selection of cereal, fruit & yog, toast and jams with a sprinkling of the unknown which was eggs on one day, porridge on another and even pancakes with honey on another which while not amazing is reasonably acceptable on this type of skiing holiday (I think ).

The Food

When on a skiing holiday, one of the joys is the food that you eat. The food in the Austrian mountain restaurants is wholesome and tasty and reasonably priced.

Ski Miquel normally provides good quality meals with a variety of food ( wine included also ) and on this occasion the meals were really good. They had a really good chef in Paulo who served a range of meat and non meat dishes. Gluten free bread was also provided for those with a gluten intolerance. Meals are normally 3 courses with wine and a cheese course for those who like a bit of cheese after dinner.

The guided skiing was also great with Carol (chatlet manager) from Newcastle leading the slow group. Both Laurence and myself joined the slow group while David and Paul joined the faster group.

The staff were delightful (as usual) and everything was good. There is one evening in the week where the staff take the night off and here you have to fend for yourselves ( which again is no big deal ), here we went to the Bauer Hotel which is in the heart of Saalbach. The last time we came to this resort we went to the Bauer and had fondu on the Wednesday and that was great but this year Fondu night was Tueaday so we decided to book a table for Wednesday and we had a romantic dinner for 4 via the ‘a la carte‘ menu where we had wine , beef broth with noodles, a mixed grille, and then Paul and Laurence had an ice cream ( you know the ones that 7 years olds generally pick with lots of fake cream ). David and I just went for a coffee and all in all it was yet another fabulous meal at the Bauer.

Ski Hire

We had pre-paid for ski hire. An additional 20 euros had to be paid for the ski storage which is adjacent to the ski lift.

Guided skiing is again provided by Ski Miquel and this is all in the package with both a fast group ( espressos ) and a slow group ( capacinos ). I always go for the slow group because this usually has the least number of people and there is always the opportunity to move up a group if one so desires.

For the week that we were there we were able to ski with ‘Carol’ from Newcastle and ‘Jake’ from Plymouth both of which were great skiiers and knew the resort really well.

Skiing

We did 6 long days. Each day we covered somewhere in the region of 32Km BUT on the Wednesday we decided to go and do ‘the Circus’ which is up to 54Km and all was going well until about 11 am when I failed to locate Laurence and I then ended up on red 161a and skiied all the way down looking for my team mates who were nowhere to be seen. After 10 mins soul searching I decided to get on with my day and I skiied solo for the rest of the day, only stopping briefly for something to eat at 2:30 pm. I finished the day by skiing down red 1 onto black 1a which were steep, icy but empty ( I wonder why ) needless to say I didnt ski them (really) I survived them.

There are a teriffic number of runs in Saalback. There are some great blue runs and some amazing red runs and we skiied most if not all of them, some of them many times.

Zelum-See

We had a day at Zelum-See where we all had to get a bus too. In the past I had not been that impressed with Zelum-See but on this occasion I think we agreed that it had the best snow and we had a cracking day’s skiing.

Quiz Time

Its kind of a tradition with Ski Miquel that some form of self entertainment is provided and on this occasion we thought that we would go on holiday armed with a series of quizzes.

David created a music quiz, Laurence a general knowledge quiz and I went armed with a Nonsense quiz that I obtained from the BBC.

All quizzes went down well and on the last night Carol also created a music/mime quiz that everyone joined in at.

Its fair to say that ALL quizzes went down well and were thoroughly entertaining.

Other skiiers in our chatlet

One of the joys of going with Ski Miquel is the opportunity to meet other people on holiday. Normally you start out as strangers and leave as friends. Some people build friendships that turn into year on year skiing groups and in our trip this year there was a group of 9 people who it seems meet together annually to go skiing and I think that this is great as you can even go on your own, knowing that you will be able to ski with like minded people and make new friends, even long term friends.

Our chalet crew doing the burgerburger challenge

In and around Saalbach

Really Old church at the top of the mountain

Billy No Mates

Towards the end of the holiday Laurence decided that he would rather have a bit of a break and see the sights of Saalbach. He also had an amazing looking pizza for lunch as you can see below.

Time To Go

Alas all good things must come to an end. The coach arrived at 8 am so everyone assembled in the lounge complete with luggage for the homeward journey.

Where Next ?

There’s talks of Italy next ……