Ischgl – Austria – Tess & Alex travels

Ischgl, Austria

Quick facts: Ischgl is a town and municipality in the Landeck district in the federal state of Tyrol in Austria. It’s one of the snowiest parts of the Alps with its 2 000 to 2 872 meters above sea level peaks.

This was our second time in the alps, visiting Chamonix before the pandemic, and this time we stayed for a week traveling with Alpresor (more thoughts on this later).

Trip highlights: Sunny skies and white slopes. Surprisingly interesting and good food.

Points: Food 8/10 points, Local wine 8/10 points.

Charter people

One thing we learned about ourselves this trip is that, although we do enjoy the ease and convenience of having someone else sort all travel details out, we are not charter people. And, other charter people are not our people.

Mapping the costs out, with the fact that Ischgl is a little bit inconvenient to get to from any airport, we decided to give it a go and booked our trip through Alpresor. They did a good job and it is easy with the transports and pickups. We didn’t do any of the activities they arranged, so we can’t review those. Since we are not interested in After ski that much, we did not meet up for that either. Anyway, not to hate to much on charter people we just felt like the crew going on a ski trip to the alps, and to a town famous for afterski, did not match with two people there to enjoy skiing, wine and a relaxing vacation.

As you can see, we were happy anyway, and the hotel was very nice and cozy.

Hotel Alpina

We choose one of the nicer hotels in the Alpresor selection of hotels, with just 100 meters to the lift. Since we wanted to be up and out as soon as the lifts opened, this was a big USP for us.

The hotel was great. Classic Austrian style with a lot of wood and carpeting (naturally). Bed was fairly comfy and we even had a smal couch and desk. The hotel had a smal spa on the top floor with thee different saunas, regular, steam and infra red.

About saunas in Austria. Word of advice, people in Austria are usually nude in the sauna. And when we say usually, the only people with bathing suits on were us and a Finish couple. It was quite shocking. Balls just walking by, butts out in the open. Anyway..

Despite this, we did enjoy the sauna after a day of skiing, and we do think it helped the muscles to recover.

Our hotel also had one of the best restaurants in town, and it was a perfect place to have our own after ski. We highly recommend it!

View from our window

View from the sauna

The skiing and the weather

We all know that a skiing vacation is a weather dependent vacation, and we’re not complaining about snow in the alps, but snow + wind + also heavy snow that comes down when they normally piste does not make for the best conditions. However, that was just the first day, and the weather improved – which gave fantastic views. Enjoy!

“A truly happy Alex”

A direct quote from the man himself. We both agreed that this is one of the best vacations. You get to be out in the fresh air, exercise and do an activity together during the day and have a nice dinner in the evening.

In Ischgl you can ski both in Austria and Switzerland, accessing the Swiss side via the “smuggler trail”.

We skied both sides and the Swiss side was a bit smaller with less slopes and not so many red and black trails. The weather wasn’t great either that day which might have effected our experience.

The Food & Wine

The food and wine in Austria was good – although a bit same same. Every menu had 70% the same dishes, some pasta, steaks, burgers and of course – schnitzel.

The schnitzel was good though, very good.

Also, more than a few Apfel Strudels with vanilla sauce were consumed.

Getting there and back

We flew from Arlanda to Innsbruck with SAS, and it was very easy, with a beautiful landing in Innsbruck. Flight time was 3 hours and 50 minutes.

The buss from Innsbruck (1,5 h) to Ischgl was very beautiful at parts with its mountains and valleys.. and long tunnels.

And, parking lots for charter guests needing to pee (due to beer consumption and being loud, or one of the two).

The poster

It’s always hard to choose a photo from the alps, but this one is cool because it shows the long lifts and the beautiful peaks. It’s also representing the temperamental weather. We also felt like one of the biggest difference between Ischgl and Chamonix was that Ischgl had more side-skiing, while Chamonix was more strait down trails.