Part II: Skiing in Semmering & Stuhleck (and Why You Should Check for Snow Chains)

On Day 3 of our trip, we headed out of Vienna, ready to hit the beautiful slopes of Austria. We had been told that real, proper, Alps skiing was several hours away from Vienna, toward Salzburg. This makes sense when looking at the terrain, but the Alps are the Alps, we figured, and we didn’t want to drive that far. We didn’t need huge mountains. Tim has skied in Colorado, but he and the boys have mostly done their runs on smaller slopes in Wisconsin. We settled on the Semmering area because it was a little more than an hour away from Vienna and offered some simple runs in a beautiful setting.

I’ll first clarify that when I’m talking about skiing, I’m talking about Tim and the boys. I haven’t skied since college or so, and I wasn’t very talented or coordinated at it back then. Since pregnancies and now a nagging back issue, I haven’t been convinced to get back out there. Tim loves skiing though and has put in lots of time with the boys skiing when they were younger. They spent many Sunday afternoons with good friends at the ski hill outside of Milwaukee (while I reveled in the quiet at home, folding laundry and watching whatever I wanted on TV).

That changed when we moved to England –  Tim tried to take the boys to an indoor place in Manchester, but he found it icy and not very well suited for their skills. So they were all a little rusty, but eager to get back out there so while it’s not my thing, I happily went along for the ride.

Just over an hour out of Vienna, we started to get into the mountains. They weren’t massive mountains I suppose, the edge of the Alps, but they looked plenty high to me! There hadn’t been a lot of snow in the season yet, but the snow started to gently fall and continued most of the day.

We arrived in Semmering, tried to park somewhere and figure out where to get our rentals for the boys to go to ski school that we’d signed them up for. The town isn’t very large and there were just a couple of runs right off of the main road – the smaller ski school run, and a larger run opposite the road, and ski stores all with names just close enough to “Semmering Ski Rental” that you weren’t really sure which one was where you were supposed to be.

I thought they were finally on the right track, so I started on my mission: find the cutest, coziest, most out-of-a-movie ski lodge and park it there for the day. I started in a small restaurant where I quickly ordered a coffee but didn’t get a very welcoming vibe so took it to go. I looked for the boys at the ski school, only to find they weren’t there yet. Maybe it was a language barrier, or Tim’s Midwestern-niceness, but they had become the very last people to be helped to get their gear at the rental store. They finally ran back over, a little late for the class but ready to do some actual skiing!

Tim wanted to do some runs on his own, so he set out to go rent his own gear and ski, while I continued exploring the town. Around lunchtime, I went into a bar/restaurant and sat at a high-back booth to save a space for the boys who had a break halfway through the day. We ordered two frozen pizzas cooked in a back storeroom and a couple of drinks and let the boys warm up.

Tim had yet to do any actual skiing. We were realizing how long everything takes with skiing – securing your equipment, making sure everything fits properly, getting passes…it requires coordination and planning and time, and becomes a little harder in a foreign country. While we had pre-planned part of this trip, we felt like the day was already slipping away from us.

The boys enjoyed ski school, but it was cold. We discovered from talking to them at lunch that yes, the instructor spoke English, but was mainly instructing in German unless he needed to specifically tell the boys something, who didn’t ask a lot of questions. That was making it difficult for them to follow along. We took them back for the afternoon session, asking the instructor to please tell them everything in English too since we had selected an English-speaking lesson.

Tim finally went across the street to do a few runs on the longer hill, and I lugged my bag over to the third place to sit, another bar that wasn’t quite the cozy I was looking for, but would work. I found a seat where I could see the bottom of the hill, saw Tim come down a few times and waited until it was time to go get the boys. At 4 p.m., we picked them up – they were the last ones in their group still, and they were ready to warm up! They were proud and hungry.

Tim had rented the ski gear for two days, so we loaded up the car and put the coordinates in for our lodging for the night, a cute lodge we found online that was closer to a hill where Tim wanted to try to ski the next day. It was starting to get dark, but we were confident we knew where we were going.

We drove up into the mountains as the snow continued to lightly fall. Highways turned to smaller roads to twisty, winding narrow roads switchbacking through little towns and up into the mountain. We hit a dead end at one point and called the lodge for help. The man tried to help us navigate back onto the correct road.

Nate fell asleep. Bennett started to get nervous. We went back down through the town, and tried a different road, thinking we had it right this time. The incline increased, and the snow that had fallen that day – while not a lot – had made the roads slick. We came to a section in the road and started spinning. To our right was a wall of trees, and to our left, trees sure…but also a drop. We couldn’t go any farther, so Tim did a very careful 10-or-so-point turn and we slowly headed back down.

We called the lodge again, saying we couldn’t get up that road. We were driving basically a station wagon and while Tim had requested snow chains in the rental car, he hadn’t double checked they were put in there, but mentioned that the rental car agent said we would be fine if we were just in Semmering as it was “barely in the mountains.” Ha.

Rudolph, the lodge owner who we were now on a first name basis with, gave us specific directions again and we headed back through town and started out on a road. We kept driving, Tim and I saying to each other “Oh, yes, this road seems better, mm-hmm,” and “Yes, I agree, this should be fine.” Then we came to a particular farm and we knew that we had eventually ended up on the same road again – it was the only way up; there was no back road or main road or better road.

“It’s fine, I have more speed this time,” said Tim. He was right. We made it approximately one switchback farther before spinning out again. I was trying not to panic but car spinning out on narrow road on side of mountain in the dark as my precious children are in the backseat…you can guess how calm I was. I nervously whispered to Tim, “Tim this is making me very scared, seriously I don’t want to keep going, please turn the car around.” Bennett started to get even more worried and told us so quite loudly. Tim, white-knuckled, assured us all that everything was fine, it was FINE! as he slowly turned the car around again on the narrow road. Nate slept.

Finally, we crept back down the steep mountain road, breathing a sigh of relief when we were back in town but feeling defeated. Tim called Rudolph again. “Our car won’t make it up there at all, I’m sorry,” he said – assuming we would just have to find other lodging for the night.

Nonsense. Rudolph said he would be right there. We waited in our car, and soon after he showed up, told us where to park for the night, threw our bags in the van (with 4-wheel drive) and whizzed us up the mountain like it was nothing. He told us, smiling, that he saw both spots we made it to and the tracks where we turned around.  We had at least another mile to go, climbing upward. There was no way we would have made it.

We arrived at the lodge, and he told us to put our things away and come down for dinner. We entered the dining room, and another couple greeted us as they played cards and enjoyed an after-dinner drink. “You made it!” they said, like they were greeting long-lost friends. They were the only other guests at the lodge and were there as Rudolph tried to talk us through the ordeal. He was the owner, proprietor, chef and our unexpected driver.

We had a wonderful meal – goulash, schnitzel, chicken nuggets for the boys. Our relief, gratefulness and the atmosphere made us savor and fawn over every bite. Rudolph joked with the boys and brought them each a small glass of a beer-looking beverage in a small glass and said it would be fine if they had some. The boys took big gulps. I laughed, while quickly taking Nate’s glass and trying a sip just to double check that it was, of course, juice.

We headed back up to our rooms, plain but functional with a double bed and bathroom. We weren’t sure if the boys would wake up confused if we were in a different room as them, so Tim snuggled up with Nate and I with Bennett. The lodge was silent by 9 p.m., and I could plainly hear Tim’s phone ding in the next room when I texted him hello. Out the window, the snow continued to fall and I finally relaxed, grateful for our safety and in awe of the natural beauty surrounding us.

The next morning, Rudolph had set out breakfast in the dining room. The other couple staying was headed out to do some hiking and snow shoeing, so they left and we packed and loaded back up in Rudolph’s van. He took us up to the top of the mountain first, letting us out to show us the views, point out landmarks and take some photos. It was beautiful – cold but not unbearable, and the sun shone brightly, glaring off of the snow. He talked to the boys about football and how he had three grown sons who had played football too. He took us back to our car and with a warm but quick goodbye, drove away. Thanks for being our knight in a white van, Rudolph.

We headed to Stuhleck, the next ski hill that Tim wanted to try as it had more runs. We weren’t the only ones with that idea and we followed in a long line of cars loaded with skis and skiers. We finally parked, got the boys’ gear back on and shuffled over to the hill. Tim said they would ski down from there and grab lift passes. I took some photos of them, waved goodbye and started walking down the road, enjoying the brisk weather and in search of coffee, when Tim called.

“I’m in a really long line for lift passes and the boys are inside the lodge because Bennett already said he was cold and Nate was crying.” Awesome!

I found the boys waiting with empty cups of hot chocolate. They warmed up and I asked if they just wanted to hang out with me while we let Tim ski. Given some time to ponder, they both said they wanted to keep skiing, so when Tim finally arrived with lift passes, they went out.

They spent most of the day on the family hill, working on turns and stops. Tim thought they would pick it up again quickly, but it was more hard-fought than that. They had trouble turning and stopping. I kept texting him if he wanted me to get them so he could do some runs, but he said toward the end they were really having fun and improving so he would rather keep going with them than to go on his own. (As we know, he is an awesome dad.)

We look at it like a great intro to skiing in Europe – the boys improved, Tim got in a few solo runs, they all had fun and we also learned what we can improve or streamline for a bigger ski trip someday. I’m continuously amazed by how much the boys are willing to try and explore, even if it’s not always easy. And when it’s not easy, there’s always hot chocolate. Plus, it’s hard to beat this setting.

Finally, they met me back in the lodge. My day had been nice, spending a few hours reading and researching what to do on the next leg of our trip, which made me eager to get back on the road. We loaded up, dropped off our skis in Semmering (minus the poles that I had left perched next to a sign in front of the resort when Tim picked us up, whoops) and started the drive back to Vienna.

Soon, we were at the Vienna train station, furiously cleaning out the crumbs of our rental car and repacking and organizing our bags. We stepped on the train and settled in our seats for the four-hour train ride to Prague that evening. Auf Wiedersehen, Austria and Ahoj, Czechia!