In
Austria, Rol and Kaz have found that you generally get the best deals by booking
direct with the hotel of your choice. With
the wonders of the internet – or the still useful fax machine – it’s
possible to handle this yourself, cutting your costs and avoiding the iniquitous
practice of being made to pay for your holiday up front (Rol swells like an
indignant bullfrog at the thought).
If
you book direct with an Austrian hotel, they will generally ask for your credit
card number to guarantee the booking in the event of a no-show but you will not
pay anything until you check out. Note
that some Austrian hotels don’t take credit cards (even the ones that ask for
your credit card number to guarantee the booking!) so if this is going to be an
issue for you, do check this when you choose your hotel.
There are cash-points dotted around everywhere, including Pertisau,
though, so in such instances we usually paid cash. Austrian hotels generally have generous and clearly-stated
cancellation policies, with free cancellation until fairly close to your arrival
date – another advantage of booking direct.
One
general observation: the package holidays and a number of the hotels are eager
to offer half-board deals to travelers.
This does usually represent a saving on dining out every night – but
the restaurants in Pertisau are so eye-poppingly good (see Places
to Eat) Rol and Kaz would have been heartbroken to have been tied to a single
restaurant, however nice. If you
enjoy your grub and fancy sampling the local fare, we advise foregoing half-board
in favour of some gustatory adventures!
The
Pertisau Tourist Information Office is the best place to start when researching
hotels, and their accommodation page can be viewed here.
Many of the hotels have websites both in English and German.
The Pertisau Tourist Information accommodation page and a number of the
hotels’ own websites are hosted by Tiscover (the Austrian national tourism
website). It’s possible to book
hotels through Tiscover (and hence through the Pertisau Tourist Information
website) but Rol and Kaz find it a rather inflexible system and recommend
instead sending an email or fax direct to the hotel concerned, after inspecting
its facilities via its website. Tiscover
seems to pretend there is no availability if you request a stay of less than
seven days, or to disclaim the existence of single rooms.
Humans are much more flexible!
For
a longer stay or a large party, you may be interested in renting a furnished
apartment rather than staying in an hotel.
There is a large number of apartment-hotels in Pertisau now, listed on
the Tourist Information site given above. If
you fancy staying more or less bang on the Chalet School site (in front of the
old Alpenhof hotel, now fallen into disrepair) you might be interested in the Appartements
am Achensee (map reference 82f).
Having
eyeballed a great many hotels in Pertisau, Kaz and Rol present their own
selections, based on their personal preferences.
Hotel
Garni Alpenrose Map reference
56
A
lovely hotel offering bed and breakfast (with evening meals on request), in a
fantastic location close to the lake for a bargain price.
Rol and Kaz will be making this their first
port of call for future visits. We
can’t speak highly enough of the service (collecting us from and returning us
to Jenbach), the lavish breakfasts, or the rooms (biggest singles we’ve seen,
beautifully fitted out with wonderful modern bathrooms, hairdryer, satellite
telly, minibar, phone, lake views – the whole nine yards).
The location is ideal – a very short stroll to the lake with the Spar
supermarket (owned by the same family) right next door and the Tourist
Information a few yards up the road – but so quiet at night you could hear a
pin drop. Kaz and Rol kept
scratching their heads wondering how all this luxury could cost a mere 39 euros
per night in the high season for an ensuite single room (with a 3 euro per night
surcharge if you stay less than 7 nights; no credit cards).
The
Albrecht family, who own the hotel and the Spar shop also own the rights to the
Stone Oil manufacturing and the odd sort of pyramid outside the hotel,
containing the Stone Oil museum, a cafe, and a shop of stone oil products.
We liked the free samples provided in the hotel so much we loaded
ourselves down with body milk and foot balsalm to take away.
If
we couldn’t get into Alpenrose, Rol and Kaz would be happy to try some of the
following places:
Actually
three separate premises: Hotel Rosenegger (3 star, map reference 55c), Gasthof
Klara (2 star = no telly, map reference 55), and the Appartements Klara (map
reference 55a). All in the environs
of the Tourist Information office so handy to the centre of the village and
the lake. We ate several times
at the Gasthof Klara and were particularly impressed by their pretty little
cafe-restaurant (see Places to Eat).
Haus
Georg Map reference 54
A
smaller place, which in the UK would be designated a B&B since it doesn’t
have its own restaurant. Well located a short walk from the lake, directly
opposite the Tourist Information and next to the bus stop to Maurach / Jenbach,
it is eyepoppingly cheap (26 Euros per night for an ensuite single in high
season).
Hotel
Strand Entner Map reference 72a
More
pricey than Rol and Kaz can stretch to, but wonderful location right on the
lakefront, and we were most taken by the Wirtshaus Entner, their small, informal
restaurant on the lakefront enlivened by a noisy chappy called Lüstige Günther
on the electric piano six nights a week. He
had the guests conga-ing wildly about the room but Rol and Kaz were so entranced
by the food they braved the merry throng twice.
Hotel
Karwendel Map reference 54a
Again,
beyond the means of the daring duo, but a swish, large hotel opposite the
Tourist Information office with a pleasant, slightly too health-conscious
restaurant sporting more refined zither-playing (selections from Die
Csárdásfürstin, Rol was pleased to note).
Rol eyed the unusually small portions (for Austria – would be counted
“ample” in Britain) and suspected that their chief clientele was largely
made up of Austrian hypochondriacs.
Other
places in which you may have a Chalet-related interest:
Hotel
Post (Map reference 82)
Hotel
Fürstenhaus (Map reference 63. Argued
by Helen McClelland to be the original of the Kron-Prinz Karl; now greatly
enlarged and taken over by the “Travel Charme” chain (with a visible
diminution of charm). Rol and Kaz
were unable to penetrate the mysteries of its restaurant which looked severely
food-free. It seems to be a truth
universally acknowledged, that the more you pay for a meal, the less food you
actually require.
There are a great many more hotels and guest houses further up the hill from the lake but we enjoyed being as close to the lake as we could manage. Some of the larger hotels on the southern, less built-up side of the village (where the fictional Chalet School was also located) have facilities like swiming pools which may be of interest to some visitors. Rol and Kaz were impressed though, by the deep quiet that prevailed in Pertisau in the evenings as they rolled home from their choice of restaurant.
Hotel
Alpenhof, where Elinor may have stayed during her visit to Pertisau,
is sadly no longer operating, but the link will take you to a page of recent and
old photos of the hotel. In Pertisau you can reach the hotel by taking the
sloping footpath that leads up the hill from the south side of the Hotel Post,
on the lake front.