Arriving in St Anton felt like coming home, I immediately felt at ease here.
It looks similar to Banff
One surprise to me was the ski lifts every few hundred feet just behind the houses that people are staying in. No need for car hire or buses to get around, simply walk out the door and onto the first gondola and you’re away!
The houses are so quaint and it’s like walking through a picture book on European history.
Houses, pubs, restaurants, apartments, hotels are all jumbled together although there is a main street that has most of the shops and lots of little cafes.
On our first morning we stumbled into a café called Café Haferl where the waitress was happy to be patient and allow us to practice our German, I’m sure she was amused but she hid it quite well. We went back there this morning for breakfast and I can see us spending a bit of time there, the coffee and hot chocolates are great and the people are lovely.
The first big surprise here was how cheap everything is! We went to the only supermarket in town to stock up on some basics and were blown away at the prices!
We’re not big drinkers but when you can buy a bottle of beer for €0,79 or cider for €1,49 it’s tempting to pick up a few bottles to have with dinner
Most grocery prices seem to be about ¼ - ½ the price we pay in Australia
The restaurants and cafes also seem to be very competitive. You can buy a coffee for as little as €1,20 and a pizza large enough for 2 people to share was €11,80. Two hotdogs with the lot and two beers cost us under €12.
On our second night here we went to a nice restaurant and still only paid around what one meal would cost us in Australia
Everyone knows we prefer to self cater when we are on holidays but at the prices they are charging here we are happy to go out a little more often.
I haven’t done anything exciting since arriving here. After the stress of the last few months I’m actually happy to just be sitting around looking out the window at the snow and daydreaming or wandering to the shops. Cooking basic meals or strolling to a café. Having a nap after lunch. I haven’t even started building a snowman yet.
I have plenty of time to get into the activities they have available here but if I don’t do any more than this then that’s fine as well….after all this is a holiday and not a competition!
Nathan on the other hand has been his usual ‘energiser bunny’ self! He already has his new ski boots (very nice ones!) and is onto his 3rd set of demo skis. Pretty sure he will buy this set though, they are the best rated skis (of course) and look really cool (also of course).
First day back on the slopes after a long break and he was back on the blacks already…I suppose no one has ever accused him of doing things by halves!
It’s been snowing consistently since we woke up this morning so he’s very happy to be skiing new powder today.
I’ll be leaving the daily blogging to Nathan as he is doing the exciting stuff and I’ll probably just do a week in review summary for the rest of our stay in St Anton.
Probably be another story once we start the 2nd part of our trip though!
3 comments:
this entire post makes me sad that i'm not there =(
What should make you happy is Nathan's last sentence in another post....next time everyone is coming!
It always makes me just a tad jealous buying food stuff overseas or hearing about other people doing it and comparing prices to here. I love my homeland, but they need to get that sorted before everyone picks a place and high tails it out of here.
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