Honestly, my best sport themed vacation ever. Imagine waking up to 240 km of amazingly white and shiny tracks, just prepared for you the evening before. Imagine having soooo many options of where to go with your ski, that you really wish there were more than just 7 days in that week. It is better than it sounds, I promise. So the destination is Olympiaregion Seefeld, the codeword is cross-country.
Since I was travelling from Moscow, I took a nice empty flight to Munich and spend a great day there with cold beer and hot sausages, not even thinking about diet. The next morning picked up my parents and went straight to Austria with fast and furious train, where you really need to pay attention in which part of the train you take a seat. Yep, it sound weird to me too, but different parts of the same train go to different directions at some point, so better be in a right carriage, trust me.
Once in Seefeld (or in any of the spots in Seefeld region) you will find yourself surrounded by idyllic Alpine pastures conveniently covered with snow at this time of the year and breathtaking mountain terrain. Perfect scenery. Among the places worth staying is Seefeld itself, Leutasch (which you can only reach by bus), Mosern and Scharnitz all connected with buses and trains. Seefeld and Leutasch have the most of touristic attractions, such as hotels, restaurants and shops, service centres, so keep this in mind when deciding between those four. Scharnitz is extremely peaceful and quiet, something you can really appreciate after chaotic Moscow life.
Now back to skiing, you have to get skiipass for cross-country and it is totally worth it. It costs 5 euro per day or 15 euro per week, and it is also your free bus rides, which is really convenient. For this price you get tracks fully prepared every day fresh like new, with clear directions and signs along the route and with very friendly skiers, all greeting each other and being polite. You can really go in so many different directions and chose how much time you want to spend skiing, you can take a bus or a train and go to a completely different track every day. The only problem of skiing there in march is the amount of ice of tracks, specially if you are an early bird and prefer to be skiing when the sun is just rising, so after a week our ski were screaming for help and were barely alive. But we were looking for a fair amount of sun during our vacation, so we were ready to sacrifice the wellbeing of our gear.
Another thing that will probably bring me back next season is the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2019, that took place in Seefeld and gave us amazing time cheering russian team during the marathon. So that’s a valuable addition to a great vacation.
Also if you are worried of getting tired skiing there is plenty of places to go in the area, you can take a train and visit Innsbruck and there it is just wonderful to walk around and enjoy the views, or go all the way up to the Nordkette with The Nordkette Cable Car and spend couple of hours overviewing the city from the top, or just find a cozy restaurant to have some unforgettable dinner. Another great option is Mittenwald, which is already in Germany but the city itself looks more like a gingerbread house, so colorful and beautiful that I would definitely go there again. If you are not a big fan of visiting new places, then you should definitely try one of the mountain skiing resorts, but here I won’t give you any advices.
