After our horrendous trip to the Sauerland region of Germany, we arrived into a hilly, snow covered land with trees, tiny villages, cows and chalets. The Sauerland is north of Frankfurt by two hours, and the destination to visit in this region is Winterberg. Literally translated as Winter Mountain, Winterberg is a quant little town full of ski shops, restaurants and gift shops, which is almost reminiscent of a real life Frankenmuth.
KC, Max and I were headed to Neuastenberg, a village just a few kilometers outside of Winterberg for a day of skiing. Most of Germany south of Hannover is hilly and the potential to build a decent ski resort of the Alps is not unheard of, but unfortunately, Neuastenberg was merely a mix between Boyne Mountain and Pine Knob: definitely not worth the 2+ hour drive that it took us to get there. But as we were already there, we put on our skis (actually KC snowboards) and headed down to the mountain to buy our skipasses.
Clever as they had it set up that you’d have buy a pass once you skied down since the only way out was via a lift (or rather t-bar tow). Luckily, the day pass wasn’t expensive for American standards, only 13 Euros, but it required a deposit of 3 Euros for the RF ID card, which is supposed to make going through the gates getting onto the lift (oh yeah, t-bar) easier. Au contraire, it made it difficult as you had to place the pass directly on the scanner for it to identify you despite this advanced and quite presumably expensive technology. In total, Neuastenberg has about 8 lifts all with these RF ID scanners.
The snow was icy and granular despite the heavy snow falls the night before. Regardless it was nice to get outside into the fresh air and go on a journey to a new place. After about 4 hours of skiing, we decided to call it day, but as it was early and so many people raved of this place called Winterberg, I decided that we should check it out before we head back towards Frankfurt, it what ultimately could be a very long trip if we were to expect that same type of traffic headaches as we encountered on the way up.
Winterberg has a main street full of shops, and only in Winterberg is their Christmas Market still open and it stays open until the end of January! Although, the town is quite idyllic as a ski town and has a bobsled course where you can pay a mere 70€ for a ride. There were many visitors from out of country and it seemed like a place where families would go over the weekend since from Danemark, Holland and Belgium, the Alps are quite a trek away.
In all, it was good to get out of Frankfurt and the megalopolis it is not (I’m being a little sarcastic in my writing aren’t I?) Doing something that I love despite a little disappointment or should I say spoilism (a new word I created) to what I’m used to. I hope to in the coming weeks to get down back to the Alps, whether I go skiing with Birgits (my old host mother from Radolfzell) sons or with an old friend of mine from Russia who is now living in Munich.
This post will be followed with pictures as I'm uploading from the train via tether through my cell phone and it would use too much bandwith otherwise and probably never load. But technology is great!
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