Welcome to our Pertisau page for our 2011 summer holiday.
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Guide to Pertisau
If you have any questions, or suggestions to improve information given, please e-mail D and J.
For other photos see our Flickr Pertisau set.
Our holiday
Pertisau was our summer holiday destination for 2011.
Our hotel was the Furtners Lebensfreude hotel which overlooked the golf course. We went with Inghams, flying from Manchester to Innsbruck, and then
an hour transfer to Pertisau - by coach to Wiesling and then changing to a taxi.
When we arrived at the hotel our room wasn't ready but they did give us our guestcards and let us leave our lugguage safely.
It was raining heavily and cold. If the weather had been good we would have brought the Achensee Erlebnis Card (see transport) and gone around the lake on the boat.
Instead we we donned our waterproofs and walked around the resort getting our bearings.
We stopped off at the tourist information office, and buying an extra walking map and picking up various leaflets.
We were given a corner room on the first floor, overlooking the golf course. We had an extra window that overlooked the
garden of the house next to the hotel. They kept pet sheep and goats, which provided us with a lot of amusement during our stay.
The hotel is small (thirty bedrooms), comfortable, and the staff are very
friendly. The hotel doesn't have a pool, or a lot of facilities, but it does serve excellent food. There is a nice cosy lounge with a wood burning fire, which was lit one evening when needed.
The hotel is excellent for golfers as it is alongside the first hole of the golf course, and gives a discount on the fees as well as having a putting green.
Breakfasts were buffet style with cereals, joghurt, fresh fruit, breads, meat, cheese, preserves and so forth. It was good to
see a large bowl of birchler muesli provided each day. They brew good pot of pot of tea too for breakfast! If you want eggs, then they are cooked to order and you can have them fried,
scrambled or boiled - and you also can have bacon with them.
The evening meal is four courses - starter, soup, main and dessert, and a salad buffet too most nights, save for the Gala night. There were two choices of starter, five of main course,
and four of dessert. The main course choices included two vegetarian dishes and three meat dishes with one of the meat dishes being replaced by a fish dish every two or three nights. On a
Friday night they have a five course Gala Dinner with no choices. The main course is usually meat based, but if requested they will serve a fish or vegetarian dish. They have a good selection
of seven house wines served in quarter litre carafes, three white, three red, and a rose. When we stayed these were all 4.80E, apart from one of the reds which was 5.80E.
They provide large litre carafes of tap water with the meal (no charge for this).
Pertisau
Pertisau is very much a resort, spread out from the shores of the Achensee. There are a number of large hotels in the resort, and it does seem to be a very popular place for holidays.
There is a church, but not many other public buildings, and there is a modern tourist information centre with a small supermarket nearby - a Spar - the prices are noticably higher than the
Spar in Maurach a few kilometers away.
We were disappointed to find there were no
bandstands for local concerts, as there were in Achenkirch and Maurach, the other resorts in the area. There are quite a few cafes and bars,
but most restaurants are in the hotels.
Pertisau has the oldest golf course in the Tyrol and the first two holes are situated close to the centre. There is a modern museum the Vitalberg which tells the story of Steinoil an
oil extracted from stone which is sold locally in various preparations which is supposedly good for your health. On the lake shore at Pertisua there is a large bathing area the Strandbad.
Boat trips are very popular and there is a regular boat service around the lake ( see Transport).
Pertisau is in a lovely seting by the lake surrounded by the Karwendel mountains.
Transport
The Pertisau area has a well connected transport system, featuring buses, boats, railway and cable cars. The public buses are free in the Achensee area with your guest card,
from Pertisau there is a regular service to Jenbach which stops at Maurach and Eben. At Maurach you can change and get a bus to Achenkirch although there is an occassional bus
that goes direct to Achenkirch from Pertisau.
The boat service is around the lake there are stops at Pertisau, Gaisalm, Achensee, Seehof, Buchau and Seespitz. The boats are modern and quiet, there are refreshments served on
board, a complete circuit of the lake takes about 1 1/4 hours. We used the boats on a number of our walks and also to connect with the steam railway at Seespitz.
There are two cable cars running during the Summer season in the Achensee area The Karwendelbahn in Pertisau takes you up to the Zwolferkopf and there are a number of easy descent
routes as well as a couple of high level walks from here. The Rofanbahn takes you from Maurach into the heart of the Rofan range and there are many walks to be done from here.
The Achensee Bahn is Europe's oldest steam operated cog railway, it runs from Seespitz on the southern shore of the Achensee to Jenbach where it connects with the main Austrian
railway network OBB and the Zillertal Railway. The distance is less than 5 miles but there is a height difference of more than 1400 ft, the journey takes about 45 minutes. The trains
are a big tourist attraction and they can get busy at times.
Information and timetables of all the transport options are detailes in the Info guide available from the tourist offices in the area. You can pay for tickets as you go but
it may be worth thinking about buying an Achensee Erlibnis Card. This runs for 7 days and includes the Achenseebahn, the Rofan and Karwendel lifts and the lake boats. It also
includes entry to some local museums plus free entry to Crystalworld at Swarovski in Wattens. We decided to buy the card especially as we had two day outs planned which would
make use of the Achensee Bahn. The cost of the pass was 54E in 2011.
Walking
Petisau is in an excellent walking area, we thought about the resort when we noticed that Ramblers ran one of their harder walking holidays here.
Although the mountains are not high by Alpine standards there are a number with footpaths taking you to the top, there are some ridge walks and
a bit of scrambling in some places, If you are keen on via Ferrata there are a number of routes in the area.
Pertisau itself is set at the Eastern edge of the Karwendel range and opposite on the other side of the Achensee is the Rofan Range. The Karwendel
range is a large range of mountains, unfortunately there is no public transport (apart from a novelty bus) that goes into the National Park. If this
was the case then a lot more walks would be available. You can drive a car or cycle into the national park. The Rofan range is a compact range of
hills and a lot of them can be accessed from the Rofan lift.
As well as the mountain walks there are walks alongside the lake and into the various valleys and forested areas. We really enjoyed our fortnight here
and found a good choice of possibilities.
Walks we did, and "days out"
The walks, and days off have been described in chronological order.
Ad hoc photos
This page was last updated on 22nd March 2012.