Cesky Krumlov

We spent a night in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic over the weekend. Fantastic little town with way too many coffee shops and bars to explore in just one day. We mooched around the shops, sunk a few Budvars and checked out the castle which overlooks the town and even has some bears living in the moat.

Visitors

We've had a bunch of visitors over the past few weeks, so here's a selection of photos from their trips.


Wade after a little hike at Dienten


Checking the route: Wade and Christian


Si off-piste at Werfenweng


Apres Ski at Muehlbach: Rich and Ess


Me at Werfenweng


More off-piste at Werfenweng. Nice photo, thanks Ess.


Katie enjoying some empty slopes on a hot day at Hintersee


Al carving on Hintersee


Katie and Ruth, Hintersee

Aprés Ski

Those of you familiar with skiing or snowboarding in Europe might be interested in reading an article I wrote for One Big Park, SalzburgerLand's Youth Tourism initiative. Click here.

If your German isn't up to scratch, you can read my original English version here.

Even more skiing

We had some visitors last week and so we took to the slopes. Si, Essex and Rich all came for a few days and I had a week off. We quickly slipped into a routine of getting up, eating, skiing, more eating, more skiing, some more eating plus a couple of beers then crashing at 10pm.

It was great, and we were lucky to get some fresh dumps. Here's a few shots, (courtesy Si) and I'll chuck some more up soon.


First day: Wagrain


Crystal clear day at Werfenweng


Me and Si at Werfenweng

ISPO

I went to the ISPO in München this year with work. It's pretty much Europe's biggest winter sports exhibition and fills about 10 massive halls over four days.

While it's a fair amount of fun and some of the stands are quite impressive (Volcom's had a huge half pipe skate ramp, plus live punk band every night), there seems to be a serious state of denial within the ski and snowboard industry. Despite snow levels across the Alps being fairly poor for the second year running, ski companies still use images of endless fresh powder runs to sell their ever more technologically advanced equipment.

There was virtually no acknowledgement of the change in climate, which just seems totally short-sighted. In 20 years, it's possible that skiing will only be available above at high altitude and for the super-rich. But does anyone at ISPO seem concerned by this? From what I observed: not really.