Munich's beer festival and art gallery (Pinakothek) are better known to our tourist than Bavaria's ski resorts. Probably, the image of neighboring Austria as a ski Mecca has an effect, and therefore the German Alps remain in the shadows. So far, the most famous brand in Germany is the resort with the hard-to-pronounce name Garmisch-Partenkirchen. But few have heard of Oberstdorf, for example, although it is there that the longest slope in the country is located - Nebelhorn (7.5 km).
I love skiing
In total, Oberstdorf has 14 "blue" ski slopes, 21 "red" and three "black" (the color indicates the degree of difficulty of the slope; in total there are 44 km of trails, of which 30 km are with guaranteed snow cover). The most famous are the already mentioned Nebelhorn, as well as Fellhorn and Söllereck. As a rule, slopes at resorts are carefully groomed. On "blue" trails for beginners, escalator lifts are installed in some places. They are easier to handle than T-bar or anchor lifts, where a skier needs to grab onto a tow bar or anchor to go up the slope. You can use the escalator lift without special training and additional explanations, so beginners have more time for skiing.
At the resort you can successfully master not only alpine skiing - there are also about 70 km of cross-country skiing trails, plus the Germans offer many other ways to slide down the mountains. Those who want to go from top to bottom rather than on the flat, but are still afraid to get on skis or a snowboard, are offered to rent a sled or an automobile inner tube adapted for riding. Sleds are traditional and well known. True, in Bavaria, which, like all abroad, is a land of contrasts, sometimes you come across not the most traditional scenes. With particular luck, you can see representatives of the Turkish diaspora (and it is very numerous in Munich) sledding in the Bavarian Alps, holding onto both the headscarf and the skirt, which keeps trying to ride up and reveal harem pants.
On an inner tube, of course, you can't ride in a skirt and harem pants. Because when you sit on it (the tube), your legs inevitably end up at head level. The first time you're afraid the contraption might tip over and you'll tumble down the mountain.
Our correspondent noticed on the Bavarian slopes a riding device resembling a cross between a scooter, a bicycle and a ski. It's hard to say to what extent this hybrid is easier to handle than skis; most likely, you'll have to spend some time learning to ride it. The most daring extremists can climb higher up the mountain and descend from there on a paraglider.
If we return to traditional alpine skiing, a standard skier's package will cost the following: a ski pass costs 164 euros for seven days (or 252 euros for 14 days), rental of alpine skis - 6-11 euros per day, boots - 4-9 euros, snowboards - 8-16 euros. By the way, the price of the ski pass includes the use of 49 lifts in Oberstdorf or the neighboring Austrian resort of Kleinwalsertal. The fact is that in some places on the Austro-German border, resorts are located so close to each other that you can only learn about the existence of the border itself from the corresponding signs (they are not that common) or from SMS messages that arrive on your mobile phone with greetings - "Welcome to Austria!" or "Welcome to Germany!" (depending on which country's operator zone the phone is in). If it weren't for mobile communication, you'd have to guess whether you crossed the border or not.
In addition to the ski pass, the Germans offer a resort card. It costs about 1.5-2 euros depending on the zone of validity and allows you to use cross-country trails, and also gives discounts when buying railway and bus tickets. One day (4 hours 30 minutes) of group lessons at the Oberstdorf ski school will cost 33 euros, half a day (2 hours 15 minutes) - 23 euros. You can buy a pass for ten daily lessons for 205 euros. Private ski lessons are more expensive - 130 euros per day for one person or 140 euros for two.
Germans are considered a punctual and prudent nation. At ski resorts, including Oberstdorf, the latter quality is expressed in the fact that all hotels are built far from the slopes. This is explained by safety considerations: after all, avalanches occasionally occur in the mountains. Therefore, you will still have to get to the trails somehow. Particularly fussy skiers sometimes rent Mercedes (of course, the latest model) for this purpose, in order to approach the lift impressively, frightening the modest German workers. But in Oberstdorf, driving at speed in a rented Mercedes will be problematic, since in the town itself the speed is limited to 30 km per hour, and in certain places - to pedestrian speed. And about 10% of the territory is even declared a car-free zone.
On foot through snowdrifts
On the ungroomed slopes of the German Alps, you can move not on skis but on snowshoes. Walking through snowdrifts with "tennis rackets" on your feet (snowshoes resemble tennis rackets, only without handles and slightly elongated) is offered both in Oberstdorf and in another Bavarian town - Oberstaufen. The essence is the same everywhere: the tourist has snowshoes strapped to their feet and is sent after an instructor who knows the area. No special skills or training, as in the case of alpine skiing, is required, since the technique of such hikes is not very complicated. True, it is worth remembering that snowshoes only guarantee that the tourist will not sink knee-deep into a snowdrift, but such devices do not save from snow getting into boots. Therefore, you need to walk in waterproof shoes - or have a spare pair of boots at the hotel.
In Oberstaufen, during a snowshoe hike, a stop is planned for building a snow igloo. The tradition of northern peoples to build dwellings from snow is being successfully adopted by tourism professionals in different countries, and they often offer tourists either to stay in such a “hotel” or to build the house themselves. This is a very profitable pastime, because its creation does not require large investments (snow, from which the dwelling is built, falls from the sky just like that), and vacationers enthusiastically get down to work. Lovers of northern exoticism and construction are given a large knife each to cut “bricks” from the snow. Then, with the help of an instructor, a house is laid out from these parallelepipeds, everything superfluous is cut away and compacted. Tired but satisfied, tourists, with indescribable delight, take photographs in front of the structure they have created, put on snowshoes and return through the snowdrifts to the local restaurant. For lunch.
Dad on skis, mom - to improve her looks
In many hotels at Bavarian resorts, as a rule, a certain number of procedures are always offered for beautification and giving desired shapes to various parts of the body. Depending on the level of the hotel, the spa or wellness centers have a specific set of services: massage, aqua aerobics, thalassotherapy, etc. So that - provided they are willing to spend a certain sum - skiing husbands can go to Bavaria with their non-skiing wives. The latter, instead of a ski slope, will spend their time on self-improvement. The size of the investment in one's own beauty varies depending on how seriously a vacationer approaches improving their figure. For example, visiting a pool or sauna usually requires no additional payment; a single massage session can cost from 18 to 25 euros, a course of thalassotherapy from 500 to 1,000 euros (it all depends on the set of procedures). A possible inconvenience when finding out prices and the range of services: in many hotels it is difficult to find catalogs in English, so tourists who do not speak German sometimes find it difficult to navigate.
Among the peculiarities of national behavior, one should know that in Germany it is not customary to visit saunas in swimsuits. One of our compatriots once overheard a conversation between German women at the hotel reception, complaining about Russian tourists: they say, they came to the sauna in swimsuits according to Soviet tradition and ruined everything. The dress code is the same for both separate and shared saunas, so you will have to either set your own rules and ignore the sidelong glances of the Germans, or still refrain from going to a foreign monastery with your own charter and submit to German tastes.
Getting there and staying
Getting to Munich is not difficult at all today. And hotels in Oberstdorf or Oberstaufen can be found from 35-50 euros per night per person. True, it is worth considering that everything depends on the set of hotel services and the season - on holidays and vacation periods, of course, it will be more expensive.