Qualifiers:

-France and Austria = where we have been. We have been to many places in France and only Zillertal, part of the Tirol mountain range in Austria.

-The word toilets is used in place of restrooms because that is what they are called here and French toilets are no place to rest or rester.

The toilets

A French friend once said, “I don’t understand why foreigners always complain about the toilets here. They should just do what I do...  Don’t use them.” If only it were that easy. We have visited places where we know that there will be godawful toilets, but when you pay several hundred euros for lift tickets you have certain expectations. The worst was at the bottom of a lift in Courchevel, the most expensive ski area in France. It was filthy, smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in years, had no heat, no TP, fortunately no seats, no soap and it appeared that washing your hands would be riskier than not. The second worst required walking down several flights of metal exposed stair levels and then dealing with squat toilets... in ski boots. Whose brilliant (not the exact word I used) idea was that? Wet ski boots do not stand still on wet ceramic. Then, squatting in a position to pee into the hole is impossible without completely undoing the bindings... all while freezing every exposed part. Even then, it was a precarious endeavor and more dangerous than anything that could be done on the slopes.

By contrast, the toilets in Austria are impeccable. They are clean, warm and smell nice. There is paper and soap, never a squat toilet and always a seat. These toilets are happy places... Coming home, when we cross the border from Switzerland to France and stop at a gas station/rest area, I am always yanked back into the reality that is France as I enter the toilets.

Après ski

At all of the Zillertal ski areas the atmosphere during and immediately after skiing is unparalleled. On the slopes, places like the White Lounge almost make you look forward to bad weather.

Click here for More White Lounge photos

At the end of the ski day, before taking the cable car down, the booming music and energy coming from the bar tugs, “Come play with us.”

At the cable car base is more music and more fun. The Ice Bar, at the bottom of the Penken lift in Mayrhofen, is indescribable, so here’s a link to a video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c4MohD4Mhk

Après ski fun at the Ice Bar

Early evening fun at Brück’n Stadl

It’s not what it looks like.

Ok, it is what it looks like, but it’s not what you think...

There is late night fun as well but we opt out.

Mountain huts

We like to start early and break early. There are warm huts serving inexpensive food and drink, from 10am, spread all over the slopes in Zillertal. We carry supplies - lunch, water, snacks and flasks, but the sausages, fries and soup are too tempting. If it is extremely cold or conditions are bad, the restaurants fill up at 10am.

By contrast, in France, it is not uncommon for a restaurant to open at 11 and not start serving ridiculously high priced food until noon.

Click here for more mountain hut photos

Warmth

In Austria, we often have the opportunity to share our table with other folks and have great conversations. This happens in France, except for the sharing and conversation parts. Usually, we would be gradually squeezed out to make room for added members of the party who straggle in a few at a time. It’s the subtle difference between, “May we sit here?” and “May we join you?” that produces contrasting results. That said, the English skiers in France were always warm and fun.

Berlin was on vacation and in Austria we met Wilfried and Elisabeth.  Elisabeth was a French and Russian teacher. We spoke English with them until they learned that we lived in France. Elisabeth’s French was better than her English so we switched. They are going to the US this year for three weeks and they will start brushing up on English again soon.

Another day we met Markus and Maxim, father and son also from Berlin. It was our last day but they gave us great tips for next year. Markus also had a trip planned to the US this year.

In Austria, we had several great conversations in the grocery store, on the ski buses, at bars and restaurants and in tele-cabins, the people always warm and happy.

We camp because we enjoy it and by economizing in lodging we can splurge on all the Jagertee we can drink, which isn’t much because it is pretty strong, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagertee. However, we don’t want to rough it when we are skiing. In Austria, the campground shower and restroom facilities are clean, warm, smell nice, pipe in fun music, have toilet paper, sanitizer for the seat, soap, plenty of stalls, trash bins and hooks everywhere. They are shiny! The ski and boot room is not only large, with benches and is heated but the rods that hold your boots overnight are heated so that they dry and are warm the next day when you put them on; more happiness. There is a sauna and an indoor and outdoor pool that is connected by a tunnel. There is a shop that has fresh breads and pastries, coffee and supplies. The town is a short walk and the ski bus stops directly in front of the campground. There is a restaurant nextdoor. We could live at this campground. We met a man who does, from December to April. He is on his 11th season and he has the best crowd avoiding tips.

In France, we searched several seasons for decent winter campgrounds, often resorting to staying illegally ovenight in parking lots. In Chamonix, a legal overnight parking lot had heated toilets but required a long, long walk to the public pool for showers in stalls that had no curtains or doors and no hooks. There is a campground in Chamonix but it is located well away from town, on a big slope that is either ice or mud depending on your site, so we preferred the parking lot... We found decent campgrounds in Samoëns and Méribel, but they were a bit too much like roughing it. Winter campgrounds in France are cold and sad and there are never enough hooks.

Transportation system

Zillertal has a great system of ski buses, a town bus and a cool train that runs through the valley.

They under-promise and over-deliver running more ski buses than scheduled.

The lifts

Zillertal lifts and cable cars are modern and fast. How can you not love a cable car that reportedly carries up to 150 people (often it seemed that we were 180) up 700 vertical meters in 5 minutes.

700km of pistes

In France, Les Trois Vallées is accurately reported as the worlds largest ski area with 600km of linked pistes. Linked pistes are overrated. Chamonix/Mont-Blanc has 400km. We prefer the variety of the unlinked 700km that are all easily accessed by a great transportation system. We met two different English men who were each on their 11th season at Zillertal and when we asked why they keep coming back they both answered, ‘700 km of pistes’.

Click here for more photos on the slopes

In addition (or above all, depending on the weather), the glacier provides guaranteed snow and great views. It is often so windy though that the good snow gets blown away. The glacier is therefore a last resort and a must do all in one.  

Click here for more photos from the Hintertux Glacier

The ideal would be to have The Tirol Snow Card with access to 82 Tyrolean ski resorts which includes 1050 lifts and 3596km of slopes from October to mid May. Maybe next year...

Food

French food is famously fabulous, but camping car cuisine is more interesting and accessible in Austria and not just because of the great choice in pickles. The chips, candy, salads... are more interesting and there is Gasser, http://www.gasser.co.at/. They have the most amazing cooked ribs, chicken and other meats at prices too good to pass up, so we didn’t. It is so great that we may go back to Zillertal next year just to take advantage of their take-out. 

We even found a super stinky, super tasty locally made cheese.

The drive

It is a bit of a longer drive to Austria but we get to drive through Switzerland and you never know what you’ll experience in Switzerland...

While we love France, we prefer to ski in Austria...