In the first week of the year we went on a winter sport vacation to Austria with the family and some friends.
I used to go on winter sports frequently, but after we had children, we didn't go for many years until last year. Now the kids are teenagers we decided to see if they like it as much as we do.
And after a successful vacation last year they insisted that we'd go again this year.
Last year we went to Kaprun. This year the destination was Brixem im Thale.
The municipality has 2757 residents and can accommodate 3200 winter sports enthusiasts.
The mountaints around the village aren't that big as in other areas of Tirol, but the area is quite big. There are several hundreds of kilometers of ski slopes of which most were opened for public.
The photo below is taken on the first day of skiing. As you can see there is a lot of snow in the mountains, but the valleys were still green. This was the reason why some of the descents were closed.
We stayed in a nice Austrian style guest house named Brixenwirt.
We had a nice room with a view on the interesting church. I haven't seen a lot of churches with two towers like this before, but I've seen a few here in Austria.
Unfortunately the churchbells rung every day at 7:00 AM sharp. And not 7 times, but 3 times 28! Even the owner of the hotel couldn't tell me why they do this.
Oh well, that way we could wake up early to go skiing.
Alshough it hadn't been snowing for a while, the snow quality was pretty good. And the views from above were fabulous. It's so nice to be out there in the cold and fresh air with these views.
It could get pretty chilly. Especially when the sun was gone behind the clouds and you were sitting still in one of the open chairlifts.
But from time to time the sun peaked through the clouds.
In the evening after the first day of skiing it started snowing. When we woke up we had a nice blue sky with just a couple of clouds. Even the trees had caught some snow which resulted in some nice photos like the one below taken from the gondola.
All the small houses on the hills in the snow really contributed to the winter sports vibe.
In the afternoon the some clouds gathered in the valley. But since we were high enough we could still enjoy the sun.
Isn't it beautiful? I immediately want to go back when I see these photos again. The cloud cover in the valley alsmost also looks like snow.
And this is the shot I'm most proud of. It was on the third day of skiing at the end of the day. We've decided to take de descent back down to the village. It was quite a difficult one since it was just above freezing point and the snow quality wasn't that good anymore at the end of the day.
But what a view we had during the descent. That made it all worth it.
At the day of return it was snowing again. Luckily not enough to disrupt our return journey.
We've had a wonderful time in Austria and made some great memories up there in the mountains. Already looking forward to next year.
I hope you enjoyed my holiday review.
FriendlyMoose
Creating blogs about photography, cycling, gardening, craft beer and more...
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