Welcome
to the Chaletians' Guide to Pertisau am Achensee, the Tirolean village which
formed the first home of Elinor Brent-Dyer’s fictional Chalet School. This
guide is intended to provide information to English-speaking tourists who would
like to visit Pertisau but who are not familiar with Austria.
Rol
and Kaz, purveyors of the Guide, have had the pleasure of visiting Pertisau
twice, once for a daytrip, and once staying for six nights.
Being dyed-in-the-wool Chalet fans, we were mad keen to visit – and it
certainly did not disappoint! Even
non-Chalet fans – and non-outdoorsy-types – can enjoy a holiday in Pertisau.
Currently,
several UK travel companies offer a limited number of package holidays to
Pertisau. We think it’s possible
to organize your own trip more cheaply, allowing you to make your own choices
from the wide range of accommodation, activities, and culinary pleasures offered
in Pertisau. In particular, we
offer advice for the solo female traveler, that being what we are (except on
those occasions we travel together!). Austria
is a fantastic destination for the solo female traveler and Pertisau is no
exception. We’re also firm fans
of public transport so the guide focuses on getting around via anything except a
private car. The Austrian public
transport network is so comprehensive that you can go pretty much anywhere via
train, bus, or ferry, and so we haven’t provided any information about driving
in Austria, though naturally it’s possible to do self-drive holidays to
Pertisau.
Some
of the websites to which we refer are available in German only (for example, the
online ticketing system for the Austrian rail network).
If possible try to corral someone with a little German when organizing
your holiday, to help you navigate your way through these sites – but if you
can’t do that, in the Compendium we provide
links to an online German dictionary and a translation engine to help if you get
really stuck!
We
tried to organize the guide in the order you would need the information. In some places, we provide the information in
downloadable/printable PDF format, because certain things (such as the Austrian
Dining Cheat Sheet, to be found in the Compendium) may be useful to carry with
you. The Compendium also contains
other, more general information, links and a bibliography.
If you have a really esoteric question, email Rol at roley@tesco.net
and she will endeavour to find an answer for you!