LSUvetgirl

Hi everybody.

My husband and I are working on planning our Christmas/Anniversary/New year's trip and we've decided on Austria and a little bit of Germany. Will be driving from Belgium, the plan is to leave around the 20th-21st, take a couple days driving down to Salzburg via some of the nice German Christmas markets and arrive on the 22nd or 23rd. Our original plan was to stay about 5 nights, then go to a laid back yet fun ski resort for another 5 nights or so. But everywhere I've looked on the ski resort front is booked solid or requires more than a week stay. So we are considering just holing up in an affordable place outside of Salzburg and staying for the duration, doing day trips etc, and leaving around January 2nd. So, this would be about 10 days.

Does anyone have any input as to whether this would be too long to stay in the Salzburg area? We had kind of hoped to do some time aroudn Salzburg and some time around Innsbruck etc so we could see Neuschwanstein but things are expensive and/or booked in that area as far as I can see unless you get far away from the main towns, and while a quiet secluded mountain village would be nice for our anniversary on the 29th we'd like to be somewhere with some fun stuff, maybe fireworks, on New Year's Eve.

We are both 31, enjoy a variety of activities (maybe a little skiing, tobogganing, try snowshoeing?, ice skating etc) and would like to do a Sound of Music tour, visit the Silent Night chapel on christmas eve, do a Mozart dinner or concert, visit Berchtesgaden/Eagles Nest, do the Salt Mine thing, and just relax and enjoy being in some beautiful landscapes.

The place we are looking at staying is west of Salzberg in Wals. We will have a car, and there is a bus stop 50m from the hotel.

Should we keep looking for a second place to split our trip up in to? If so, any suggestions for a resort-y area with a decent amount of stuff to do that would be fun on New Years but not already booked up?

really lookign forward to this trip, and would appreciate any input.

Carrie

Nonconformist

I'd suggest St Wolfgang.

LSUvetgirl

Nice suggestion, I'd never heard of it before. On looking at it though, it sounds pretty quiet....without much going on at New Year's..although it looks lovely!

Images2

We're going to Austria for Christmas and New Years this year and spliting our time between Salzburg and Vienna. Vienna is to have great fireworks for N.Y.E.

ira

Hi L,

Also look into St. Gilgen, St Johann in Tirol, Kitzbuehel, Bad Ischl, Mondsee, Traunkirchen and Nussdorf.

LSUvetgirl

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. We ended up staying in a great hotel about 15 minutes outside Salzburg for Christmas. Very convenient with a car , and so much more snow than down in the town! It was called the Hotel Obermayr; the owners were SO friendly and helpful, the scenery was gorgeous, rooms were clean and ours was newly renovated with private balcony looking out onto the forest....the restaurant downstairs was lively and great. They had a nice dinner for all the guests on Christmas Eve night, and some families even put the children's presents under the big tree in the dining room. There was another American couple there, and a couple from Italy, and we all sat together for our Christmas dinner, sharing the festivity and enjoying our attempts to communicate via half-knowledge on our part of Spanish and French

From the 27th until Jan 2nd we went to Kirchdorf, a village just north of St. Johann in Tirol (thanks for the suggestion!) by the time we were looking for a room Kirchdorf was the closest we could get to St. Johann in Tirol. But we had an absolutely fabulous time. We stayed at the Hotel Kramerhof (actually located in Bad Gasteig - a little village above Kirchdorf). We selected a halfpension option and had a wonderful meal every single night. This place was fantastic. They had a sled run behind the hotel; at the top of the hill (about 2km up) there was a bar that sometimes had live music. You could sled for free if you stayed at the hotel but if you wanted a ride up to the top of the hill that was 5 euros per person sneaky. But you were welcome to walk. They offered horse drawn sleigh rides through the fields and forests nearby. There was a working farm, with all sorts of farm animals . They had free ski gear rental and a sauna, plus most evenings there was an activity of some sort. One night we got to go curling!

The English speaking abilities of the staff are very very limited but they really do their best. On New Year's Eve they had some live music in the bar, fireworks (really nice ones too!) and we bought a bottle of champagne to toast in the new year.

This place also looks like it would be fun in the summer, with hiking, more farmy activities and horseback riding, plus they did have a pool.

Overall a great holiday!
Will post pictures when I get them uploaded.

Carrie

JN

Thanks for posting about your trip. It's great when folks who have asked for advice come back to discuss what they did and what they enjoyed.