First time in Austria and we returned to skiing after last years fairly unsuccessful attempt at snowboarding. I would have liked to have done one more week of snowboarding to get used to it but it now looks like I'll never be returning to it after being outvoted by the rest of the gang. I must say, due to my more advanced level of skiing, this was a much more enjoyable week than last years. Being able to ski all over the resort without much trouble is a far more enjoyable experience than the battering I took last year whilst snowboarding.
This year the gang was myself, Louise, Toner, Phil and Graeme. Adam pulled out the day beforehand which was a bit crappy. We could likely have gotten someone else to go with more notice.
This was our first year going on a package holiday and it worked out a treat. It's so much more hassle free than organising everything ourselves. All we had to do was get on our chattered flight in Dublin. Once we landed in Salzburg there was a Direct Ski representative there to show us to our bus. A swift 90 minute bus journey and we were dropped off at our hotel for the week. Our rep quickly became known as Better Graeme for his similarity to our Graeme but just slightly better in every way. He was very helpful for the week.
Louise spotted a GrabOne voucher which knocked €100 off each so it only came to €569 each for flights, transfers, accommodation, inc breakfast and dinner everyday. It was an extra €200 for the ski pass for the week and €100 for ski hire but that was still a good rate. People had mentioned Austria was expensive to ski in but not Soll. Food and drink there was very reasonable with a pint costing around €3.50 and you could get a good feed up or down the mountain for €10 - €15. The accomodation was bare bones but it did have 3 pubs on the ground floor so there was generally a bit of craic.
The day after we arrived was the Ireland v England game in the Six Nations. We did a days skiing first to get back into the swing of things and then finished up in time for the match. The bar in the hotel was rammed with Irish and English so there was great banter. Fortunately Ireland one.
We didn't bother with joining a ski class this year but Toner did manage to find an Irish guy who did a nixer for us and brought us out for the day for some tips. This worked out well and only cost us €50 each for the day. Lenny was his name and he also has some apartments to rent over there:
http://www.bergviewhaus.com/
We also tried tobogganing for the first time which was hilarious. Soll has night skiing so we were able to do it at night time under flood lights. We started on a red slope which you go done one at a time. I kept trying to take the corners too quickly so kept crashing. I also went straight through a corner and did a bit of off piste tobogganing. Louise followed me off piste as she thought it was the way to go. After the red slope we went back to a blue on which we could all go on at the same time so plenty of violence pursued. I haven't laughed as much in years, it was brilliant craic.
As for Apres Ski, there wasn't much craziness on the mountain that we had experienced in France and Italy but the town itself was generally busy in the 4 or 5 pubs it had. We did a quiz night one night which didn't go so well and we ate out two of the nights too. We were drinking most nights and got very drunk for about 3 of them. Getting up in the morning wasn't the worst though and my legs lasted quite well for the week which was a surprise as I haven't been exercising in years.
All in all, I would go back to Soll again as it was mainly red slopes, was reasonably cheap with nice people and has a pretty good Apres ski and is easy to get to. Up there as a favourite with Val Thorens I think.
