ICE Ventura
St Anton
For me St. Anton offered the best week in the Alps I have ever experienced.
Everything here was faultless from the hotel, nightlife and skiing. This place is like “Ibiza in the snow” and it’s not hard to see why. The Apres scene here kicks off from about 3.30 in the afternoon with the 2 mountain restaurant bars Krazy Kanguruh and Mooserwirt the best places to head for with their “extraordinary party atmosphere” (and you will not be disappointed!). The music played here varies from euro trash to retro 80's rock and pop along with some modern day tunes.
Once you have survived the intoxicated run back down into the town (hopefully without bashing into anyone) you will find more bars pumping out some more mainsteam dance tunes. It almost persuedes you to want to skip dinner and carry on into the night.
If you are on a self catering or bed and breakfast basis, there are a variety of restaurants to eat out each night. You will find everything from steak houses, pizza, Tex Mex.
St Anton is also known for its "Challenging skiing" which I soon found out to be the case on the first run down. Blue runs although usually tame and harmless in other resorts can become a little steep in places here. I boarded here all week with a group of skiers and soon found myself missing my skis in no time. I also noticed whilst there that in general that the skiers far out numbered the borders.
The Arlberg area lift pass allows you to ski over to the resorts of St. Christoph, Zürs and Lech although to get over to Zurs and Lech you will need to catch the Ski bus from either St. Anton or by skiing over to Stuben and get on the bus there. The journey time is about 10-15 minutes. Some of the chairlifts in Zürs and Lech have heated seats which can be a welcome comfort on a cold day. If your lucky you may spot one or two celebrities around here as well.
This is also a good choice for a long weekend break as you can fly to Innsbruck and then get a train here.
The average cost for a large beer or Gluhwein is about 5 euros and a lunchtime meal of spaghetti bolognese and large coke averaged about 13 euros. So obviously it can get quite expensive although the exchange rate at the time did not help.
Date Visited: February 2009.
Rating: 10/10.
Top tip: Bring plenty of euros (especially if you plan on hitting the bars every night).
