Winter 2020 - 21 Look back

We hope this finds you all well and looking forward to better times ahead.  Rather than our usual look back at the season and all our wonderful guests, I’m afraid it is just a look back at what Maria and Alan did over the winter season!

All tourism and gastronomy businesses were ordered to close from November and are currently closed and are waiting to hear when they can open again.

Since autumn we have been in some form of ‘Lockdown’ here in Austria, but thankfully our ski areas were allowed to open on Christmas eve so that we could ski as part of our ‘lockdown’ exercise and they remained open until this Sunday 25th April, for which we were immensely grateful.

We have had excellent snow conditions through-out the season, and of course with no overnight guests allowed, almost empty slopes. We really appreciated the extra free time we had to enjoy being out on the slopes but of course it just wasn’t the same without the camaraderie of sitting in a warm mountain tavern with friends, catching up on the day’s ski antics over a warming drink and some good food.

We are so looking forward to next winter season and being able to welcome guests back into Chalet Gove, and to have our home filled with the sound of happy voices again.  On that note, we already have over half of our weeks booked for the 2021-22 season so if you would like to join us please contact us now to enquire – maria@chaletgove.com.

Note - We are also now taking bookings for 2022-23.

If we have to cancel your holiday for any reason, we will refund all your money including your deposit. For full details, please see our cancellation policy.

Snow came in earnest at the beginning of December and lasted in the garden right through to the end of March this season, and then came back the second week of April, providing a great end to the season.

These pictures are of views around our village of Lessach and Alan getting some exercise clearing the snow 😉

With the ski areas not allowed to open until December 24th, we had to enjoy the December snow by taking lots of snowy walks and invested in some snowshoes to help us walk in the deeper stuff.

Our friends Sara and Paul took us out to Schönfeld which is about 45 minutes’ drive from Lessach for a beautiful first snowshoe walk in powdery deep snow. Getting used to the width of the shoes took a little while and there was more than one topple into the snow as we accidently trod one shoe on the other.

All our ski areas opened but they did not run all their lifts and open all their slopes, particularly during week days and especially in January, when it is normally very quiet. However, as we have the luxury of 5 different ski areas (6 if you include our village ski run) to choose from, all within 30 minutes’ drive or less, we had plenty of choice and as usual could select the best place to ski on any one day according to the weather, which due to their positioning can be amazingly different at each area on any one day.

The main difference this year was of course the fact that we had to wear FFP2 (or equivalent) masks when travelling on the lifts, plus the lifts only transported half their capacity. When it was very cold during January the masks came in handy whilst skiing keeping your face nice and warm 😉

Our favourite place to ski is always Fanningberg, here are a few pictures from our trips there this winter and as you can see, even our Fanningberg snowman wore a mask. The Fanningberg dog was very lonely this season, limited to attention only from the visiting locals.

Having no guests to look after this season gave us the rare opportunity to ski with the friends we have out here, and to try out our skills on some of the un-pisted slopes, and who would have thought getting on a swing could be so difficult, even with some help!

At the start of April we had a couple of very warm days (before it turned to freezing, blizzardly conditions again!) and we actually dusted off our bikes and got our for a ride.  I love the fact that in this picture you have beach-ball players in shorts and t-shirts, us reasonably wrapped up for our bike ride, and in the distance skiers well wrapped up skiing on the slopes.

So that’s it for now…at this moment in time we are not sure when we will be able to open for summer and if so, whether international travel will be allowed. As soon as we know we will send out a summer newsletter.  We are of course taking bookings for summer 2022, so if you would like to book please contact us – maria@chaletgove.com