Last week I took my mom on a surprise holiday to Austria for a little winter getaway. I had fallen in love with the Austrian mountains a while ago and it was time to take my mom and show her this beautiful place on the planet. It didn’t disappoint!
The week before our arrival it snowed so so much that at first I was worried we weren’t going to make it. They were closing off resorts and roads due to the heavy snowfall and danger of the many avalanches but thankfully our resort “Zell am See-Kaprun” was still open.
We took the plane to Salzburg Airport and then a couple of busses and trains (some train tracks were closed due to avalanches) before we finally made it to our hotel: Hotel Stadt Wien. When the taxi stopped in front of it my mom exclaimed “wow is this the place we’re staying at?”. It sure did look amazing! Completely covered in a thick layer of snow, fairy lights at the entrance… it just looked like a dream!
We got to our room, which was on the top floor, and we had such an amazing room it felt more like an apartment! The room had a living room, separate bedroom, huge bathroom with shower and bath and two balconies, one with a view to the slopes at Schmittenhöhe and one with a view to the town of Zell am See. Seriously couldn’t have asked for a better room!
The hotel is on the road to Schmittehöhe, the gondola to take you all the way to the top. Right in front of the door is a bus stop that you can take for free if you have a skipass and goes every 20 minutes and the bus will take you to the gondolas in less than 3 minutes. You can also walk to another gondola 5 minutes away to take you to a different part of the resort. The skipass also included the Kitshsteinhorn Gletscher(20 minute drive away) where you can go to the view point at 3000 meter but because it was snowing the whole time we were there we figured it wouldn’t be worth it without the view.
As we arrived early we decided to go for a walk in town and pick up our skipasses. Zell am See-Kaprun had kindly enough given us the passes so I could go snowboarding and mom could enjoy the view on top of the mountains and take photos 😉
Back at the hotel we got to enjoy the amazing spa area. There’s an outdoor heated swimming pool (which btw looks amazing surrounded by snow!), lots of different saunas and steam rooms to wind down after a long day in the cold.
The spa will be completely renewed by may 2019. I spotted some drawings and it will look even more amazing than it does now with an even bigger outdoor pool!
The next couple of days were spend with wintery walks (it was dumping snow every day when we were there), eating delicious food (even though I was still recovering from stomach flu and couldn’t eat much, the owners kindly gave me a disgusting alcoholic shot with 40 different herbs to kill of all the bacteria in my body and I can confirm it worked!) and snowboarding in pow for the first time ever which was the best thing! I’ve been quite lucky to snowboard on only bluebird days in the past so the slopes were always prepared. Now I realized you’re more lucky if your able to snowboard in a thick layer of fresh snow!! <3
The slopes at the Zell am See ski area are pretty nice! All the way to the top you have some nice “bare” slopes with an amazing view and as you go down more you’ll be in the trees which is always my favored part cause I love it how the trees look covered in snow.
Also something worth mentioning about the hotel is the food! The breakfast buffet was amazing with tons of cereal options, fresh juices, bread, fresh eggs and you can order a baked omelet. In the afternoon you can get a quick bite in after being on the mountains and shortly after that there’s diner with so many delicious dishes and on some days they have something special like fondue.
That was it! Our time in Austria is over but we had an amazing time! We both had never seen so much snow before and we often had to laugh seeing cars completely covered in snow and thinking how they will ever get them out?! I think I succeeded in letting my mom fall in love with the mountains so I think we’ll be back soon 😉 Thank you Hotel Stadt Wien for having us!! X
Click here for the hotel we stayed at: Hotel Stadt Wien
And here if you’d like to know more about the resort: Zell am See-Kaprun
