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Ski Innsbruck Accommodation
Book Innsbruck ski accommodation direct with owners chalet or apartment.
Innsbruck is a sizeable city, with an excellent range of winter sports facilities (it has twice hosted the Winter Olympic Games) as well as a captivating medieval core. It has smart modern shopping areas, museums, concert halls, theatres and other attractions that you might seek out on a summer holiday but don't dream of when going skiing. It has 1200m vertical of skiing on the south-facing slopes of the Hungerburg, reached by cable-car from the suburbs; but for visitors, if not for residents, skiing at Innsbruck usually means skiing on the other side of the valley, to east or west of the side-valley that reaches southwards towards the Brenner pass and Italy.
The Brenner road is a major pipeline for goods and tourists between Germany and Italy, and opens up the possibility of interesting excursions (skiing and non-skiing) to the Dolomites and beyond. The Innsbruck ski pass covers the lifts in all the resorts described here, which are served by a free ski-bus. If there is insufficient snow for skiing locally, free buses run to the Stubai glacier beyond Neustift Igls (900m) is a resort in its own right, although a small one. It is a leisurely, even sedate little place that barely seems part of the modern skiing world; frankly, we find it difficult to imagine spending a whole week here -but people do. The skiing consists essentially of a single run with slight variations on-and off-piste. It is an excellent, long, testing red of about 1300m vertical, which formed the men's Olympic downhill course in 1976 when Franz Klammer took ski racing (and the gold medal) by storm. There is a ski school with all-day ski kindergarten (of which we've had a good report), and a non-skiing kindergarten. Axamer Lizum (1600m) could scarcely offer a sharper contrast to Igls. It offers a much higher, more varied and interesting ski area, with the most reliable snow in the area. If you're going to stay in a morgue-like skiing service station, you might as well stay in one with a lot more to ski. The vertical drop on the main east-facing slopes back to the main lift stations is only in the order of 700m, which makes Igls look impressive. But there is much more variety here, on open red and blue runs below the peaks of Hoadl and Pleisen. From the latter, a long easy black run, well away from lifts and other intrusions, goes all the way to Axams on a shelf above the Inn valley at 880m - a great way to end the day. On the other side of the Axamer Lizum base station is a genuinely black slope served by a chair-lift, with a connection at the top to Mutters. There are ski schools, with all-day ski kindergartens. Mutters (830m) is a charming, rustic village at the foot of a long, narrow ski area giving delightful easy cruising down from the link with Axamer Lizum to the village - a very respectable vertical of 900m.Tulfes (900m) gets overshadowed by Olympic Igls and Axamer Lizum, but has a very worthwhile ski area - red runs at the top, blue lower down -with the biggest local vertical of almost 1500m.
