Week in Austria

ApUhtred

Registered user
Joined
Jan 18, 2019
Messages
48
Reaction score
0
Location
southampton
Planning this trip for June, yes I know we will all be dead by then, and plan to spend a week in Austria. My question is would it be better to rent a house in a central position or tour using hotels. 3/4 bikes and people.

Regards Steve
 
Work out where you want to go and decide if it suits a single base with daytrips or will you need to move every day. The country is 500 miles or so from east to west.

Then there is the group you are staying with. You need to make a lot more effort staying as a group in a house as you have to clear up after yourself, maybe share a bathroom. If one of the crew makes a mess in their room then you all might lose the deposit. How well do you know and trust these people?

I organise trips for a consistent group of people. We tend to use hotels as we are a mix of couples and singletons. Some are getting on a bit so I plan to spend 3 nights in a hotel and then move on. This gives the variety of location but also the opportunity not to ride every day. As the years have passed, we are less ambitious about distance as I am the youngest at 58 and some are in their 70s.

The other thing is, are you spending all 7 days in Austria or does that include getting there and back? If the latter then you only have 3 or 4 days there anyway, so use a hotel.

Only you know the group of people and the timescales. Come back with some more specific information as none of can decide whether your mates are people any of us would want to share a house with!
 
House will give more flexibility and somewhere communal to spend non-bike time together. But, as Wessie says, there are few people I'd be happy with sharing a house with for a week! In fact, I can think of about three* people. If I include my wife, that total goes up to three.

Austria is quite big. if you want to spend the whole week in the Tyrol (or one particular area), then a house makes sense. I imagine there are other great places to see in Austria and it's a bit of a trek if you want to visit Vienna or Graz.

*NB I haven't discussed this with Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Myleene Klass yet.
 
Would you be better renting a house in the middle or booking hotels? Ask the 3/4 bikes. If they don’t know, ask the 3/4 people.
 
Any shared accommodation with others apart from your partner is a bad idea. Honestly it really is a bad idea.

Someone is always last for a shower and gets cold water.
Someone is always banging on the toilet door because they’re touching cloth.
Someone leaves a skid mark down the back of the toilet.
Someone uses the last of the toilet roll and doesn’t replace it.
Someone comes in after the others and makes a noise.
Someone gets up earlier than the others and makes a noise.
Someone leaves empty take away boxes and dirty plates on the table.
Someone leaves empty beer or wine bottles on the table.

I’ve shared accommodation on biking trips, mountaineering trips (they’re the worst) and on general holidays where a few couples rent a villa and there’s always stress at some point so go for hotels. It’s far easier to base yourself in a hotel for a couple of days so luggage can be left behind, you’re not hitting a deadline to eat breakfast, load the bikes and get going. You can also have a day away from others by doing your own thing without worrying where you’re going to stop that evening if there’s a hiccup.
 
Do you mean a week in Austria, or a week including 2-3 days out then back = maybe a couple of days in Austria.

A week is a long time in one spot unless you like riding the same 3,4 or 5 passes every day, in the Dolomites you can a single base and put a good few days rides in without too much repitition, but not so much Austria, and yes it is quite big, so I would suggest a 2-3 hotels for 2-3 nights at a time giving you a day or two to loop around the local passes and you can ride some more on the day travelling between the two hotels and on your way in / out.

Much better off figuring out what roads you want to ride and places you want to see first, unless you plan to rent a house for a week and just hope you can reach it all from that one gaff, or don't care about the roads and sights in which case just stay home for a week and go for a spin each day and save your money ;-)

Might want to consider a bit of riding in Switzerland, from a biking roads perspective I am not a huge fan of Austria, apart from the Nockalm and Grossglockner there are not that many great passes, the Timmelsjoch is als OK, but not close to the other two. Austria is also a long way out (assuming your coming from UK) and I personally would want longer and work in a bit of the Dolomites and Swiss Alps into the trip.
 
Thanks Chaps,
Yes it is a week in Austria as in 7 days. That was why I thought about a house. However reading AndyB list I take the point. I think hotels may be a better idea. The original idea was monetary as I had not looked into hotel prices but sort of thought this is going to be costly with separate rooms for us all. But I have now come to my senses and it would spoil the holiday if a row did start over something minor and get carried on into the rest of the week.
Cheers all
 
You may well get a very good price on a apartment/ house rental in certain area in Austria this summer , most renters had the Ski season (their busy season) curtailed last winter due to Covid and most of the same resorts have been almost empty for the summer season.

This ski season is going to be late starting (end of January) and Austrians are not travelling due to the Covid situation and because so far they have only vaccinated a few thousand countrywide.

As a result many renters have been very quiet for 12 months and may well be into May so will be desperate for money ,especially if you are going to book early .

We know a couple of hotel owners and mountain hut owners who have had their incomes cut by over 60% in the last 12 months and they say the private (foreign ) accomodation renters have been even worse off receiving no govt backing.

Personally I would look at hotels with say a night in say Bregenz, a night in Landeck or similar, a night around Innsbruck and then couple of nights in say Zell ams See and then a couple of more around say Malta or Hallstatt .

That way you can take in a load of passes both in Austria and northern Italy and get the best of the Austrian Alps and the Dolomites.

If you have not been to Austria before don't ignore Pensions etc as they can be a lot cheaper
 
Thanks Chaps,
Yes it is a week in Austria as in 7 days. That was why I thought about a house. However reading AndyB list I take the point. I think hotels may be a better idea. The original idea was monetary as I had not looked into hotel prices but sort of thought this is going to be costly with separate rooms for us all. But I have now come to my senses and it would spoil the holiday if a row did start over something minor and get carried on into the rest of the week.
Cheers all

Austria is one of the cheapest places to stay in the Alps. You can get pretty decent half board (room, breakfast & dinner) for 50 euros per night and very good if you pay 75 for somewhere like https://www.hochland.at/de/nauders-...ts/angebote-preise/einzelzimmer-brunelle.html in Nauders, close to where Austria meets Italy & Switzerland.
 
It's far less hassle to use a Hotel, or a decent Pension. Many in Austria are very bike oriented, some even offer hire bikes by the day if anyone in your group fancies a change.

This may give you a few ideas .......... https://www.motorrad-hotel.com/en

I have used several properties in the group over the last 15 years & always received a warm welcome.

However none of us can yet judge the likely impact of CV-19 on the hospitality industry, or what constraints may be placed on us if/when Europe opens up again. Looking ahead, June sounds a tad optimistic right now, but who knows; hopefully we shall be released sometime soon.
 
Isn't it a long old ride every day to get to and from the Grossglockner etc?


Pah! Just get up early.

PS In reply to Andy’s fulsome list as to why NOT to rent a house, I found the house rental worked well.
 
Thanks Chaps,
Yes it is a week in Austria as in 7 days. That was why I thought about a house. However reading AndyB list I take the point. I think hotels may be a better idea. The original idea was monetary as I had not looked into hotel prices but sort of thought this is going to be costly with separate rooms for us all. But I have now come to my senses and it would spoil the holiday if a row did start over something minor and get carried on into the rest of the week.
Cheers all

Have a look at this:

https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/544374-Austria-Historic-Cities-Tour
 
Pah! Just get up early.

PS In reply to Andy’s fulsome list as to why NOT to rent a house, I found the house rental worked well.

Tell me that when you’ve been renting a house at least one from my list hasn’t occurred?

It could be worse, back in the days when I was doing a lot of caving we used to go away to the Dales for a weekend of caving and rent a couple of static caravans under the viaduct at Ingleton. Great in theory but the practice was that we’d cram 8 of us into one caravan and use a second one as a massive drying room, crank up the heater and shut the door on it. The woman who ran the site used to go ballistic so we could never book it in the same name twice and used to arrive late to collect the keys then keep out of sight the next morning in case she recognised anyone.

It was considered perfectly acceptable to try to be first in the toilet each morning, take the toilet paper out of each cubicle then sit in one and listen to the desperate pleas of other occupants who found out too late that there was no paper :D
 
This has a connection to a week in Austria?

Oh, for fuck’s sake....

AndyB_11 posted about the horrors of hiring a house. I simply posted that we hire a house for about a week for Le Mans, with no problems.

My experience referenced Le Mans, as I haven’t stayed in a rented house in Austria. Andy’s was when mountain climbing, location unknown and on general holidays. I could have said that we (a diverse bunch of us) also rented an apartment in Rome, to watch an Italy / Ireland rugby match, without any problems. Friends have rented houses together in South Africa, again with no problems.

Here to help you, is it set out in sequence:

Planning this trip for June, yes I know we will all be dead by then, and plan to spend a week in Austria. My question is would it be better to rent a house in a central position or tour using hotels. 3/4 bikes and people.

Regards Steve

Any shared accommodation with others apart from your partner is a bad idea. Honestly it really is a bad idea.

Someone is always last for a shower and gets cold water.
Someone is always banging on the toilet door because they’re touching cloth.
Someone leaves a skid mark down the back of the toilet.
Someone uses the last of the toilet roll and doesn’t replace it.
Someone comes in after the others and makes a noise.
Someone gets up earlier than the others and makes a noise.
Someone leaves empty take away boxes and dirty plates on the table.
Someone leaves empty beer or wine bottles on the table.

I’ve shared accommodation on biking trips, mountaineering trips (they’re the worst) and on general holidays where a few couples rent a villa and there’s always stress at some point so go for hotels. It’s far easier to base yourself in a hotel for a couple of days so luggage can be left behind, you’re not hitting a deadline to eat breakfast, load the bikes and get going. You can also have a day away from others by doing your own thing without worrying where you’re going to stop that evening if there’s a hiccup.

We rent a house for just under a week for Le Mans. Works well; cheap too.

Got it now?

Yes? Great. Now, what are your pearls of wisdom as to whether the OP and his 3/4 bikes and people should:

A. Stay in a hotel in the middle of Austria

B. Rent a property in the middle of Austria

C. Stay in several hotels

Any experience you have as regards B above would of course be welcome. I am ambivalent as to what he does, thinking that the OP and his 3/4 bikes and people, can and probably should work it out for themselves. Not least as he knows them and they know him, which is a big help when deciding what accommodation will suit them all for their holiday. He / they will also know (or at least should) where to position the rented house and / or hotel(s) as they will know what it is they plan on doing in Austria, which is (as has been confirmed) a very big place.
 
OP, I think renting a house in the middle of Austria for the duration of your and your 3/4 people’s holiday is a great idea. It might also be a feckin’ stupid idea if:

A. Your chosen position is miles away from the destinations you want to ride to each day. That assumes that you want to ride anywhere at all.

B. You think you will inflict any or all of the horrors Andy lists on your companions or them on you and each other.

If though you want to use it simply as a base to go walking out from and / or for wild flower pressing or just sitting about in (chilling with like minds, to use the popular expression) it could well be a stroke of genius.

Your turn now.....
 
Here are some Alpine days out, I have a few routes in Austria from two bases, one in the Tyrol, the other near the Grossglockner.

https://www.myrouteapp.com/profile/routes/485#981738/name/asc

As mentioned I think there is better riding elsewhere, the Dolomites spring to mind instantly, also Switzerland (Around Andermatt) and France - several spots have lots of ride-out options with more passes / variety, in 2013 we combined The Dolomites with Austria and also rode through past Andermatt and Livigno on the way in, then back via Austrian Tyroll and Black Forest.

I also have some good routes between various Alpine locations;

https://www.myrouteapp.com/profile/routes/485#981740/name/asc

You could also invest in the books "Motorcycle Journeys through the Alps and beyond" which has a number of routes in Austria and some other useful info.
 


Back
Top Bottom