Christmas Day & Boxing Day in Kirchberg
After the blizzard-like conditions of Christmas Eve, we couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas Day – snow everywhere and clear blue skies all around. With no official tour commitments aside from a group lunch in the restaurant, we decided to take it easy today. Having celebrated yesterday with the traditional Christmas Eve dinner and gift giving, most of the locals were either doing the same thing today, or in a lot of cases, heading to the slopes for some of the most pristine skiing conditions imaginable. Myself, I decided to take a walk with the camera and really explore Kirchberg, where practically every street has a postcard-worthy view. Vanessa decided to spend the morning in the hotel room, making some late evening calls back home to Australia, and just recharging the batteries for awhile. There’s not a lot more to add to the morning’s story, so here are some of the many photos I took during my walk before lunch:
I started off by walking due east from the hotel to the end of the street, which gave me views eastwards across to the massive peak of the Kitzbüheler Horn, standing at 1,996m above sea level and to the south over the village towards the three peaks of Hahnenkamm (1670m), Ehrenbachhöhe (1802m) and Gaisberg (1767m). All across the peaks, and despite the decent snowfalls of recent days, there were signs of snow-making machines in action, blasting even more snow onto the many ski runs and toboggan trails that dot the area.
I retraced my steps and headed westwards to get some more shots of the church and graveyard. I’m normally pretty good with my bearings, in Australia at least, but I have to confess to getting horribly disoriented in these mountainous areas. I think it has to do with the fact that the sun isn’t transiting the sky in the way I expect it to. I’d swear blind for instance that when we were looking out from the balcony of our hotel we had a view to the north and west, whereas in reality it was to the south and east.
After following the Aschauer Ache down into town, I stopped to admire another postcard view of the Kitzbüheler Horn. A passing couple stopped to see hat I was looking at and were aghast. They had been in the village for over a week and this was the first day they’d been able to see the nearby mountains. “I’m going to copy that image if you don’t mind” said the lady, and as I moved off she grabbed out her phone and stood exactly where I had stood. I wonder if her images came out looking as lovely as these.
Heading back up the steps beside the church, I stopped to admire a family of Eurasian bullfinches that had gathered at a birdfeeder behind one of the chalets. From here it was a short walk back to the hotel, just in time for lunch.
Lunch was a pretty quiet affair, with only our tour group and a handful of other visitors, although somehow it was still felt necessary to restrict us to the two tables. Not that we cared much, as after a quick but delicious meal of roast turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce, we were back outside, this time heading for the chairlift that would take us to the top of the Gaisberg.
I have a love-hate relationship with chairlifts. It’s not that I’m afraid of heights so much as it is I’m afraid of falling, and when I get on a chairlift, I’m somehow always gripped by an irrational fear that the bar is suddenly going to lift up and I’m going to plummet to the ground below, or that I’m going to somehow slide underneath it – not likely given the multi-layers of heavy clothing we had worn. Usually when I’m on one of these things I have skies on my feet and ski-poles in my hand, but this time around I just had my camera with a wrist grip, which added to my fear about the drop below. Still, I managed to keep my **** together for long enough to snap off a few shots here and there.
Those damn snow machines seemed to have been set up to maximise the drift across the run of the chairlift, meaning you’d suddenly find yourself ploughing straight through clouds of freezing cold snow as the lift gained in altitude. Despite the sunshine, the outside temperature barely climbed above -3°C for the day, and with the snow drifts it was far colder.
The view from the top of the Gaisberg is spectacular, looking down to the valleys and villages below. There isn’t much up there other than a chalet with a bar, which thankfully had toilets as well. This is considered a beginners’ slope around these parts, with smooth, uninterrupted runs down to the village. It’s mostly popular with tobogganers, but as we had no insurance coverage for such things, we had to brave the chair back down again.
Once down at ground level again, we slowly made our way back to the hotel, stopping for some snow play here and there in the glorious afternoon sun. The clear, cold conditions actually made for some tricky walking at times, as the direct sun would melt the snow on the path, but the cold air would refreeze it once the sun had passed, creating patches of ice amidst the otherwise powdery snow. It was especially bad on some of the steeper streets, but thankfully along the way there are plenty of handrails to grab onto, so long as you don’t mind risking frostbite to do so.
We had a swim and a light dinner that evening, and Boxing day was pretty much a carbon copy of Christmas Day, save that we didn’t go up the chair lift but instead opted to hit one of the local taverns for a delicious lunch. The official group tour was to the nearby resort town of Kitzbühel, but as we had little desire to window shop expensive boutique stores, and the advertised “romantic” sleigh ride through the snow turned out to be a shared experience with 12 other people, we decided to give it a miss. Which also gave us an opportunity to revisit the Chinese restaurant in the afternoon for some honey-drizzled banana fritters. Another light dinner, then back to the hotel to pack our things before heading off to Munich for the end of the tour tomorrow.
