Since my daughter started Grundschule (elementary school), we have come to the grim realization that we are tied to the school schedule. While schools in Germany have many extended breaks throughout the year, they have traditionally been inflexible about vacation days outside of those on the official calendar. Schulpflicht (Compulsory Schooling) strictly regulates attendance and I have heard of parents of school-aged children stopped at the airport and fined for taking children out of school for a holiday. 

This is quite inconvenient for people like myself where a visit home consists of a 12 hour plane ride. In particular, the one week of Weihnachtszeit (Christmas vacation) last year just wasn’t going to cut it. So we informed her teacher that we intended to stay in the USA past the break, wrote the school a letter, and hoped for the best. I wanted to get a letter of approval (preferably stamped) from the school but along with securing all the other paperwork we needed to fly during the pandemic we didn’t get one and I was definitely sweating it in the lead up to the flight. Perhaps in response to the last two years and irregular attendance, or maybe we just got lucky, no one batted an eye at us traveling during school times. Whew!

That said, we didn’t want to risk our luck again and planned our next trip in accordance with the school calendar. Arriving shortly after the Christmas break at the end of January for Berlin (school breaks differ between Länder or states in Germany so everyone doesn’t hit the road at the same time), Winterfeirien provided an additional week of vacation from school. In need of a true escape while still keeping fairly isolated we chose the side of a mountain in Österreich (Austria). It was glorious. 

View from our Holiday Home PHOTO: Erin Porter

Why Stay in the Austrian Alps

We had previously scrapped a large group trip to Poland as Covid numbers had risen alarmingly after the holidays, but we still had a van reserved and another couple ready to travel. Seeking seclusion, we looked to the Alps. Now, this may seem counterintuitive as some of the first hot spots of Covid were in these alpine resorts where people from all over the world mingled after a day on the slopes. But we thought being vaccinated, boosted, and staying in our own remote AirBnB would limit our chances of joining a superspreader event. 

The deciding factor for our location was really the house. When we started casually searching for somewhere to stay – originally just in Bayern (Bavaria) – pictures of the Alps lured us in. Schweiz (Switzerland) is another German-speaking option but prices definitely go up across that border. Once the 350-year-old listed building in Raggal appeared, we were sold. The furniture was right out of a storybook and the Stube (living room) was top-to-bottom wood. A pellet stove kept the place so warm we had to open the windows to the snow at times to cool down! 

We had never heard of Raggal before but discovered it was a small town of about 850 people in the district of Bludenz in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. It was well-connected by road and ski lifts littered the area (I was addicted to checking out the Raggal webcam). With little more than that preliminary information we booked and crossed our fingers no one came down with Covid before the trip. 

Spoiler alert: We made it! …but just barely. We arrived to cool, but clear weather and inched our giant van down switchbacks along the mountain.The next day brought a giant snowstorm that didn’t let up for the next three days. We saw the weather report and got to the grocery store before it arrived so we were well-fed and certainly not thirsty when we were partially snowed in. We were actually able to get in and out, but not the van. We had to park it at the top in the village as there was no way we could navigate the small road once it got completely covered in snow, and then ice. Even with a plow coming down twice a day, it was a little too much for these city slickers to drive. The Austrians seemed perfectly comfortable.

Our friends skied, we sledded, and we all ate, drank, and made merry. 

Sledding to our House PHOTO: Erin Porter

Top Tips for Planning a Winter Vacation in Austria

My top tips for those planning a similar vacation include:

• Come Prepared with Chains – Our AirBnB host wrote our party several times emphasizing the need for chains. She wasn’t kidding! When it was time to leave we needed chains to even get out of our icy drive. 
• Note if you are staying in a Biosphere – It is not uncommon to have some additional tourist tax when you arrive at a place these days, so we were prepared for this extra cost. What we didn’t realize was what came with it. In the Biosphärenpark Großes Walsertal this included free bus service, discounted lifts, and various other benefits. 
• Bring Specialty Ingredients – We went down every aisle of the grocery store outfitting our house for everything we could want. We had planned for a raclette night, ate lots of lovely rolls, leberkase, and other fine foods, but our nacho night was a bit lacking. Bring a few spices with you like cumin that are going to be hard to come by. Even though the stores were stocked, things must have come from a long way and fresh produce was worse for wear. 
• Revel in the Mild Exoticness – It is always fun to travel to other German-speaking areas and observe the different accents and vocab. We were all about “Servus!”, a greeting you never hear in Berlin. We also met some neighbors who were surprised to find Americans in Raggal, and said we were the first they had ever seen there. 

It really was a great trip and I will cover our other stops on trip – Naumberg, Bayreuth, Regensburg, and even a trip into Lichtenstein and Switzerland – in a future post. If you have questions or want the location of the house just leave me a comment.