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Winter weekends are for slope shredding, at least for us. We prefer to stick to Austrian resorts, because they are close (we live in Austria), the slopes are perfectly groomed, lifts are modern and the food is exquisite. This weekend was no exception. For the first time we headed to Ski amadé, to be more exact to Salzburger Sportwelt with resorts such as Zauchensee, Flachau, Wagrain, St Johann…

How to get to Salzburger Sportwelt?

As the name says Salzburger Sportwelt is just a stone’s throw away from Salzburg. The nearest airport is Salzburg and they have good train connections from Munich, Innsbruck and Vienna.

Which resorts are in Salzburger Sportwelt?

There are several resorts in Salzburger Sportwelt. The biggest is Snow Space Salzburg, followed by Zauchensee-Flachauwinkl, Shuttleberg, Radstast-Altenmarkt, Filzmoos and Eben im Pongau. If you buy at least 1,5 day pass you can ski at any of these resorts. The resorts are a part of the biggest Austrian ski region Ski Amade with the following ski regions: Schladming-Dachstein, Gastein, Hochkönig and Großarltal.

We visited 3 resorts: Snow Space Salzburg (120 km slopes), Zauchensee-Flachauwinkl (44 km) and Shuttleberg (40km). A 3-day pass is 164 €. A day pass for Snowspace Salzburg is 56€ and the cheapest is Goldegg with 37€.

Snow Space Salzburg is the biggest of them with several entry points. The lifts are modern cable cars and heated chairlifts, if you try really hard you can find an occasional older chairlift. The slopes are extremely wide, red and black slopes almost always have blue bypasses. Ski huts are beautiful and offer amazing views.

On Friday we skied in Zauchensee. During our visit the women’s skiing world cup circus was here. Friday was downhill practice day. We wanted to see our Slovenian double downhill world champion Ilka Štuhec. We did, but unfortunately, she fell right in front of our eyes (you can see more in the video).

Inspite of that, we were simply blown away by the resort. You can find a couple of t-bar lifts, but the slopes were perfectly groomed. A single lift gives you so many options we didn’t have to ski the same slope twice. We also found the ski hut here with a heart shape in the snow on the roof. More about what we ate and the prices, soon. 😉

We spent a morning on Shuttleberg. If we were freestylers this would have been heaven. They have one of the biggest freestyle parks in Europe. There are more 100 obstacles for freestylers. We only dared to try the beginners’ line. Being 30+ I don’t think we are gonna pull a back flip anytime soon. 😀

Where to stay?

There is a wide range of accommodation in the area. If you want to have a direct access to Snow Space you should stay in Flachau, Wagrain or St Johann. For Shuttleberg the best villages would be Kleinarl and Flachauwinkl. And for Zauchensee, the best place to stay is Zauchensee or Flachauwinkl.
We stayed in Altenmarkt (which also has its own skiresort) and drove to the mentioned resorts. The location of Altenmarkt is great because you can enter any resort of Salzburger Sportwelt in less than 15 minutes.

Our hotel was Gasthof Rosner, a family run, newly renovated hotel. The room was spacious, spotlessly clean, the food mouth-wateringly good (with vegetarian and vegan options). Needless to say, they have a free parking lot and a skibus stop is right in front of the hotel.

What to do?

The main activity here is of course, skiing. All the resorts offer “extras” like: speed tracks, skimovie tracks, funslopes, snowparks. All these “extras” are included in your ski pass.

Hermann Maier Tour

Did you know that the skiing legend Hermann Maier is from Flachau? No, we are not going to send you to the museum, but we are sending you to the Hermann Maier Tour. It takes you to Hermann’s favourite places of Snow Space. On it you will ski 35 kilometres of slopes, 6704 vertical metres and ski from the top of Snowspace on 1980 metres. From here you can enjoy a 360 degrees panorama view of the Austrian Alps. The world cup slalom track is also a part of the tour, you can take pictures at different photo stops and download the photos and vertical metres statistics to your Skiline app.

G-Link breakfast

You can have breakfast in the cabin of the 232 metres high cable car G-link. They will serve local delicacies and after breakfast you can explore the slopes of Snowspace with a personal guide.

For more of these special events (pssssst, there are 3 events just for ladies in March-»Lady-Skiday«, »4-Berge-Ladies-Tour« and »Ladies Alpine craft festival«, if anybody wants to go, let me know and we can go together 😉) visit their webpage Made may day and check the wide selection of events.

Tobogganing, cross-country skiing, horse sleigh rides

You can do all of the above and more in Salzburger Sportwelt. We weren’t here long enough (or were too busy skiing) to try everything. But there are some things we just could not miss:

Erlebnis Therme Amadé

There is no better way of ending a skiing day than with a sauna and a warm pool. So we decided to head to Erlebnis Therme Amadé. We headed for the saunas but were pleasantly surprised by all the slides and different pools with different mineral solutions. The outside panorama saunas are big and beautiful and as it is the case in better saunas they also offer different programs in them.

Indulging in excellent food

Let’s start by saying that we ate extremely well. As well in the hotel as in all the three resorts we visited. The food was served very nicely (like in a fancy restaurant). As a part of Genuss Skiroute we went for a very special dessert in newly renovated Starchenstadl where they serve all the typical Austrian desserts in one sitting. After so much skiing I think you deserved it. 😉

Apres Ski

Something that should not be missed while skiing in Austria. Let me tell you, we have never seen such a “hot” apres ski. In Starchenstadl they have dancers who raise the Temperature at weekends. Definitely worth a visit. 😉

Family holidays

We don’t have children yet, but we did see many families on the slopes. They offer a lot of family runs, kids’ runs, magic carpets, snow carrousels and cute mascots. When we have kids we will definitely come for Mini’s Week. Kids up to 6 years of age, get a week ski course, equipment rental and ski pass for only 120€ if they stay here for 7 days.
In Snow Space there is a Winter World with ski challenges, dwarf’s house, snow carousel, kids snow park. On Thursdays there is a grill party where kids can grill hot dogs.

If we have any readers above 60, Ski amadé have not forgotten about you. In pre- and after season you get a free 6-day skipass if you stay here for 7 night. Pretty nifty, right?

This was our first Ski amadé holiday, and hopefully not the last because it was phenomenal. We could not have wished for better weather or better slope conditions. There is still a lot to explore so we hope to come back.

All in all we loved it ❤  Here’s a vlog from this great weekend on snow