Monarch’s services to Innsbruck bring some of the best known resorts in the Austrian Tyrol closer to you than any other airport can. In some cases the combination of a short flight, small airport, and short transfer mean you can be on the slopes within 3 hours of taking off from the UK! Which is about the same length of time as the coach transfer alone from Geneva to Val d’Isère on a good day, and that’s after you’ve made the flight and battled through giant Geneva.
Seefeld
Only 25km (40-minutes drive) from Innsbruck, Seefeld is one of the easiest ski resorts to reach in the Alps. The famous resort has a wonderful ambience, with its old centre and picturesque mountain scenery. Horse-drawn carriages depart from the pedestrianised heart of the village, by the Gothic-style pilgrimage church of St Oswald.
Seefeld boasts a huge range of activities, as well as great skiing with runs up to 6km long. The resort sits on a sunny plateau, open to the south, and its higher than average elevation for an Austrian resort means that good snow-cover is the norm, with 90% snowmaking backup if Mother Nature fails to produce the white goods. Apart from downhill skiing the region has a strong reputation for Nordic sports, and was the venue for the cross-country skiing in the 1964 and 1976 Innsbruck Winter Olympics.
A New Ski Jewel
Monarch’s Innsbruck flights also allow you to be among the first and the fastest to reach Europe’s new Ski Jewel! The only ”new” ski area in the Alps this winter, created by the gondola and piste lift-linking for 2012–13 between the iconic village of Alpbach and its neighbouring Wildschonau Valley.
The two ski areas have each operated separately for more than 50 years, but the new Ski Jewel area linking the two, with nearly 150km of piste, has shot into the Tyrolean top 10 for size, but remains among the most affordable passes in the Alps on price. The area is just 70km (less than an hour’s drive) from Innsbruck.
Mayrhofen
Mayrhofen, another of the world’s top ski resorts, located in the stunning Ziller Valley, is just 70km from Innsbruck airport. More than 50 state-of-the-art lifts serve 161km of piste, topped with one of the world’s two year-round ski areas on the Hintertux Glacier. Any pass for 3 days or longer is valid at all the ski areas in the Ziller Valley – the Zillertal Superski Pass has more than 750km of piste on the ticket. All in all it’s no surprise that the biggest annual festival in the Alps, Snowbombing, is staged here each spring, just after the Altitude Comedy Festival in late-March. The resort has more than 100 shops and 70 restaurants.
Sölden
For snow-sure skiing you can’t do much better than Sölden and Obergurgl, 75km from Innsbruck, in the Ötztal. Obergurgl is one of the highest traditional villages in Europe, and the ski lifts open from mid-November each season – among the first in the Alps for a non-glacier resort. Larger Sölden, with which it shares a lift pass, opens earlier still, from September, thanks to its twin glaciers. One of the top party towns in Austria, this is also a great choice for anyone looking to ski or board all day then dance all night.
Innsbruck
Innsbruck itself, like London, has hosted three Olympic Games, most recently in 2012 – although admittedly for Innsbruck the Games last winter were the new Youth Winter Games.
Innsbruck has an over-capacity problem in the winter, and as a result high-quality hotels have bargain priced beds and a very affordable ski pass is offered, the Olympia World Ski Pass, covering nearly 300km of slopes, available at eight ski areas dotted around this capital of the Tyrol. Each morning a bus will take you from your hotel to the ski slopes of your choice. These might be the Olympic pistes of Axamer Lizum or Igls, or the glacier runs of the Stubai, already open for 2012–13 – the choice is yours.
In the evening, or if you like on a day off, explore this historic university city, with its hundreds of shops and vast choice of restaurants, as well as numerous cultural and historic attractions – it really is a wonderful choice for a ski and city break.
The Rest
And these are just the start – Innsbruck is also the gateway to many more top Tyrolean resorts, and also the closest airport to some north Italian ski areas in the Dolomites, such as the famous Alta Badia region, 153km to the south. Back in Austria, Kitzbühel is 89km away; Austria’s largest ski area, the Skiwelt, with 280km of piste is 100km away; and Innsbruck is also the closest airport to St Anton (105km away). Also nearby is the Pitztal glacier at 3440m, Austria’s highest ski area, which is 80km away; and finally another of Austria’s top party towns, Ischgl, is 100km away. All in all, if you can think of almost any Austrian ski resort, it’s likely to be closest to Innsbruck, and all accessible with Monarch.
