20-02-2025
Innsbruck's locals have cracked the perfect ‘ski-life balance' – here's how I did the same
I don't often think about Holy Roman Emperors while on the ski slopes. But as I passed a humming Alpine mountain restaurant with a terrace brim full of sun-worshippers, I noticed its name – Kaiser-Maximilian-Hütte – and a flood of recollections came back to me.
Ah yes, Kaiser Max as he is known in these parts. This was the legendary Habsburg ruler who, as Holy Roman Emperor in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, made Innsbruck his seat of power and, for a while, the most important city in Europe.
I'd learnt a great deal about Maximilian during an extended walking tour of the city the preceding day as I sought to get my bearings and take advantage of the innovative Ski+City pass which gives visitors the chance to mix and match time on the slopes with exploring some of the city's myriad attractions.
I'd been to Innsbruck before, but realised that – other than the fact it's closely surrounded by mountains (you can hardly miss those) and that it was famous for hosting the Winter Olympic Games (1964 and 1976) – I knew precious little about it. Or indeed its most illustrious ruler.
Interested though I am in history, Maximilian had somehow slipped through the net. The tour soon put me straight.
A keen warrior, Maximilian was considered the last of the medieval knights and the first of the Renaissance princes; he was a man who straddled both worlds, an innovator (he pioneered the use of canon), a reformer (he introduced the first ever postal service), a lover of lavish displays and a self-publicist par excellence.
One such display, the Goldenes Dachl (golden roof), is the go-to attraction for pretty much all tourists passing through the city. This roof – a spectacular construction covering a balcony in one of the grand buildings in the medieval part of town – was built to mark Maximilian's wedding to Bianca Maria Sforza in 1500.
While not actually gold (it was made of fire-gilded copper tiles), it glitters to this day, providing the perfect backdrop to the selfies and Hollywood poses of which Maximilian would so thoroughly have approved.
His other great legacy is the extraordinary tomb that was constructed in the Hofkirche (Court Church) containing a guard of honour of 28 life-size bronze statues of his ancestors and legendary figures of European royalty – including our very own King Arthur – surrounding a vast marble mausoleum. Incomplete at the time of Maximilian's death in 1519, the tomb has never contained his remains (which are in Vienna) – but it remains one of the most remarkable monuments to the dead you will ever see.
No wonder I paused at that mountain hut the following day as I sped down the slopes above Küthai – at 2,020 metres, it's the highest resort of the six surrounding Innsbruck and one of 12 covered by the Ski+City pass and easily reached by bus.
But my skiing day was still young and I was hungry to cover ground – the red runs coming down from the Hochalter, the Schwarzmoos and – inevitably – the KaiserBahn lifts on what in the morning was very much the sunny side of the resort. Later, on the other side of the resort, I tackled a further series of lovely reds, the runs beautifully framed by the jagged peaks above Hochoetz, before moving onto the more challenging black runs coming down from the GaisKogelBahn.
I am an experienced skier, but it always takes a while to get back into the groove, and a few black runs certainly did that. I'd more than earned the vast portion of Apfel Strudel and vanilla sauce I was served by a waitress wearing lederhosen on the terrace of the Dorfstadl restaurant where I enjoyed my own precious moments in the sun, and the communal buzz of contented skiers nearly all of whom were native Austrians.
Skiing in the resorts close to Innsbruck worked very well in combination with wider cultural exploration. None of them are that big so if, as I did on another day, you want to spend just the morning (or afternoon) skiing, devoting the other part of the day to exploring, say, a castle, it is easy to do it. The piste maps are manageable; there are a range of options but not so many that you feel overwhelmed.
No, here you can do as the locals do: ski for half a day and do something else in the other half. It's called the ski-life balance.
Which is how, on another day, I came to spend the morning skiing in Axamer Lizum – a resort famous for its winter Olympic runs and the Hoadlbahn cable car which whisks you to 2,340 metres in just six minutes. The sun was out again as I sought (not wholly successfully) to rediscover my carving skills along a range of runs suited to intermediate skiers before easing along the gentler slopes closer to the tree line.
From Axamer Lizum, there are stunning views of Innsbruck and the River Inn; the bridge over which – first built in the 12th century – was a key connection between the north and south of Europe and the basis of the town's meteoric rise as a medieval superstar, a buzzing metropolis flush with money from the trade in silver and salt and a constant flow of merchants.
I was itching to get back down there to dip in again to the City side of my pass, which allows access to 22 attractions ranging from a 400-year-old bell foundry, an interactive science centre, an ancient mint, an indoor pool with sauna and the dazzling Swarovski Crystal Worlds.
With just four days, I had to be very selective and opted that afternoon to head just out of town to the Ambras Castle. High on a hill, this stunning Renaissance residence – built by Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand II as a sumptuous retreat for his 'commoner' wife Philippine Welser (something of a scandal at the time) – was home to the world's first museum, a magnificent collection including armour, Ottoman treasures and Gothic sculptures. It also has a truly vast bathing area (Philippine obviously enjoyed luxuriating).
I also took a trip by cable car up to Nordkette, the closest peak to the city offering fabulous views, stopping along the way at the Alpine Zoo to marvel at mountain cats and brown bears, and pausing to take in the striking stations along the way designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid.
I admired more of Hadid's handiwork on the last day of my trip when, rather than squeezing in the challenge of a session on the Stubai Glacier, I opted instead for a very leisurely Sunday morning Frühstuck (breakfast-brunch) admiring the views from the 12th floor of the stylish Adlers Hotel (a great base for Innsbruck), before making the short bus trip to the Hadid-designed Bergisel Ski Jump, site of extraordinary derring-do – both in the winter sports arena but also in the famous (if indecisive) battles in 1809 between Tyrolean freedom fighters and the combined forces of Bavaria and Napoleonic France.
Beyond the pass, I dined like a king (or rather kaiser) on goulash soup, Grostl roasted potatoes and a surprisingly tasty ensemble of gnocchi, beetroot and feta cheese in wonderful establishments such as the 600-year-old Weisses Rössl in the heart of the medieval city. I also attended a musical soirée involving works by Mozart (who passed through Innsbruck on his way to Italy) played on a combination of flute, violin, viola and violoncello.
I enjoyed feeling part of the city – which contains a large student contingent – while also being able to access the surrounding slopes with ease (needless to say the buses were punctual and comfortable).
Obviously this kind of trip wouldn't suit people wanting to focus intensively on skiing (or snowboarding); there are plenty of resorts within easy access of Innsbruck – Mayrhofen comes to mind – that are better for that.
But for those who want to combine the adrenaline rush of mountain air and exercise with a stronger sense of place - or for those travelling with people who do not want to ski at all – this is a very good option.
On the eve of my return to the UK, I wanted to pay my last respects to the great Holy Roman Emperor who so decisively put Innsbruck on the map.
It was a Sunday night, as it happens the one time in the week when, during evening Mass in the Hofkirche, the organ dating back to 1558 – the oldest in Austria - is played.
I sat spellbound as the music filled the air and pinched myself at the splendour of the statuary that was all around me. They may have been motionless, but no doubt all those worthies surrounding the imperial memorial were similarly moved.
I felt I'd finally got to know Maximilian, the colossus who stands tall over Innsbruck in much the same way as the majestic mountains that surround and define it.
What a man; what a place.
Essentials
Adrian Bridge was a guest of Austria Tourism and Innsbruck Tourism. He stayed in Adlers Hotel in Innsbruck; double rooms from €135, excluding breakfast.
The SKI plus CITY pass Stubai Innsbruck starts from €147 euros for two days. British Airways, easyJet, Jet2 and TUI Airways offer direct flights between the UK and Innsbruck.
