 Poster: A snowHead
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Layne, if your not careful i will bump a thread............. You have been warned. 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| ansta1 wrote: |
| honda cx500 the dispatch riders tool of choice for years. |
ex-police R80/7
CX500s scared me from the day I saw one, even writing the word gave me a palpitation 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Ratae Corietuvorum, whilst you say you're happy to stay the skiing equivalent of a Sunday Driver, it might be useful to progress further, it helps to be able to keep the fearless kids in sight even if you can't keep up with them.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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hammerite, I do hear what you're saying, but within 3-4 years they'll be skiing mainly with school and friends, and while its good that parents TRY and stay in touch with thier kids, it can very often be the case that we end up holding them back and transferring fears and inhibitions, or trying to keep up. When my children start driving, I have no intention of trying to "keep up" 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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If you are a Francophobe I'd definitely recommend Austria or Sud Tirol(Italy). They have Gemutlichkeit(Cosy warm hospitality) that is a foreign concept to the French.
Sounds as though you were unlucky with the Inghams reps in Finland as in general we have found them to be great. Completely understand the choice to use a TO to sort it all out for you.
I'd suggest looking at Auffach in Wildschonau, now linked with Alpbach as Ski Juwel. While the slopes are marked mittel on the map they were where I spent a lot of my 2nd week skiing(in ski school) though we were staying in Oberau at the Tirolerhof.
Another couple of options could be
Zell am See, there is a hotel out of the town but at the lift base which is a bit cheaper than the ones in town.
Hopfgarten in SkiWelt, a couple of hotels right by the lift, not a lot of queues and if the run back is too daunting you can take the lift home, the kids will be fine with ski school.
You can get some decent deals on Snow Houses in Mayrhofen and Soll from Inghams, beware the ones that Crystal sell as Mayrhofen area as they will be out of town. However the lifts will be v busy at half term, people can get a bit stressed by the Penken lift queue in Mayrhofen.
How old are the kids?
In Austria the norm is all day ski school, often lunch is done by the ski school instructor taking them to a restuarant and they order chips or spaghetti and cope just fine by learning the german for these things. The kids love to get away from parents, our son was 9 for the first trip and learnt german for 'chips and two apple juices please', he came back to the hotel with other kids from his class and we would come back from our lessons to find them already in the games room with soft drinks the hotel staff put on our bills for us! Some of the smaller Austrian resorts are very safe places for children, the local kids have a lot more freedom from a younger age than ours are used to.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Ratae Corietuvorum, I suppose it depends on the age of the children. Jnr is 11, on our last holiday for the first time I got the impression of struggling to keep up/keep him in sight. He's not quite at the age where we'd be happy letting him loose on his own or with some mates, but will be in a couple of years. Ideally we need to find him some ski mates because I don't think I'd ever be comfortable him skiing on his own (only child too).
As janette says though the Austrian all day ski school thing works pretty well for this.
Obviously at driving age he can pretty much do as he likes (disclaimer for the "not under my roof you won't" type things  )
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janette, Brilliant!!!!! Every time I see pics from Sud Tirol I just want to be there. I was hoping that this might be an option for us, but let me get this straight. It essentially an Italian Province, but predominantly German speaking?
Does the all day Austrian style ski school operate here?
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hammerite, Indeed, ours are 5 and 11, but we started family late, so we're both a sprightly 48  , hence the struggle to "keep up". The all day ski school sounds ideal for us.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Ratae Corietuvorum, we've just come back from the Dolomites which is Sudtirol, it's a bit strange, you hear many languages from locals. We were in Arabba where locals mainly seemed to speak Italian, apparently a language called Ladin is relatively common there too. We did ski round the Sella Ronda and apparently Selva is a bit more Austrian, but we didn't really notice it.
It wasn't really part of Italy until after world war 1.
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RC, no experience of kids ski school in Sud Tirol as our son is all grown up now. We decided years ago that our boy was going to out ski us , he is an only child,we just put him in Austrian ski school and he was really happy, also he was learning German at school so it made him motivated to become pretty fluent. Have a look at a few of the ski schools in the areas you are interested in to see what they offer for lunchtime supervision.
We did go to Badia in Italy a few years ago when my husband was still recovering from hip surgery and he went snowshoeing and I skied, there the local language was Ladin, but in the hotel we were honorary Germans as we speak more of it than Italian and they sort of segregated the dining room by main language. No language problems anywhere, they see to be happy in German,Ladin,English and Italian. I'd stay closer into the Sella Ronda circuit next time we stray from Austria. However I was impressed at how well the Dolomiti superski area linked up they have horizontal lifts to link areas when the terrain is too flat to get a skiing link in.
Certainly from the opinion of many who grew up in German speaking households, they are Tyrolean first and just happen to have Italian passports. Italy is a relatively young country and the South Tyrol was a spoil of war after WWI and there was suppression of the local languages for many years.
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