SV Saalbach village and amenities
TR Transport
WA Walking
OW Our walks
EP Extra photos
Walk Photos
Welcome to our Saalbach page, where we give detail on the resort, transport and the walks we did on our holiday.
You are at: Home > Saalbach
|
OH Our holiday
SV Saalbach village and amenities TR Transport WA Walking OW Our walks EP Extra photos |
Walk Photos |
If you have any questions or suggestions to improve information given, please e-mail D and J.
Saalbach was our summer holiday destination in 2004.
Saalbach (1000m) lies in the Glemmtal a few miles west of the lake resort of Zell am See. Saalbach is in the province of Salzburgland. The Glemmtal is a small valley that runs from east to west, the two main villages in the vallley are Saalbach and Hinterglemm. There is road access from the east end of the valley only.
Saalbach is a spread out, with some areas climbing into the hillside. Some of the accomodation is several minutes walk away from the centre and the main facilities.
In the centre of the village there are couple of streets that contain most of the shops, cafes and banks. There is a small village square with a bandstand and the church is situated just off the square. Some of the central area is pedestrianised as traffic goes along the main road on the edge of the village. On the main road which follows the river is the tourist office where you can get information about walks and walking badges. There are two cable car stations, one is is situated on the main road and the other is situated to the north of the village square.
There are four supermarkets throughout the village, one is situated in an old building in the village square. The post office is in the village square. There is an outdoor public swimming pool along the main road about 10 minutes walk from the centre, this was closed whilst we were there.
We stayed at the Alpenhotel a 4 star hotel in the centre of the village, only a few minutes walk from the cable car stations and bus stop. We had a very nice room with balcony at the back of the hotel, with views of the church - beware the 7am wake up call from the bells! It is a large hotel which has a lot of facilities including its own conference suite. When we were there it was very quiet and so lacked buzz. The food was reasonable but we did not enjoy the evening meals as much as we have in other Austrian hotels, again this may have been because it was quiet. The hotel has a leisure area which includes a small indoor swimming pool.
One couple we met, used Inghams to do the flight and transfer, but picked their own hotel. The reps were very helpful to them. They have done this for many years, and would recommend it. You don't necessarily save money, but you do have the opportunity to negotiate rooms that suit your requirements (more space, better TV, etc), and may include better meals e.g. 5 courses instead of 4. It is something we would consider doing ourselves in future. This couple were comfortable with leaving booking till a few weeks before their holiday. Another piece of advice was to double check whether it would be worth doing transfer yourself - hotels are often very accommodating and will pick up from local bus or train station. The final advice was to ring round the different tour operators as options and costs varied by year, and closeness of departure date.
Our holiday was with Inghams You could make your own arrangements and drive there or fly to Salzburg, then train to Zell am See and Post Bus to Saalbach.
There is a Post Bus to Hinterglemm and the end of the valley at Lengau, and down the valley to Zell am See. It is a hourly service with buses running into early evening. The main bus stop is situated outside the Schattberg Cable Car station.
At Lengau there is a tractor train, called the "Noddy" Train, which runs further up the valley to Lindlingalm. This connects with the bus service.
There are four cable cars in the valley that are open in summer.
The Schattberg X-Press goes from Saalbach to the top of the Schattberg mountain (2018m) on the south side of
the valley.
The Kohlmais lift goes from Saalbach to the top of Kohlmais (1794m) on the North side of the valley.
The Zwolferkogel lift which goes from Hinterglemm to the top of the Zwolferkogel (1984m) on the South side of
the valley.
The Reiterkogel lift which goes from Hinterglemm to the Reiterkogel Middle Station on the North Side of the valley.
There is also the Schmittenhohe Lift which you will need to use if you
do the Panaroma walk over to Zell am See.
All the lifts runs daily from about July to late September, some of the lifts run from the end of May to the beginning of October.
There are a couple of passes that you may consider buying.
One is the "Alpine Pass" valid for 5, 7
or 12 days. This pass covered the use of all the four cable cars, local bus up to Lengau and down to Jausern,
the "Noddy" train, and use of the public indoor and outdoor pools. It also covered one trip on the cable
car between Schmittenhohe and Zell am See.
The other pass is the Wandercard which covers unlimited use of the four cable cars for 2 days in 5,
4 days in 7 and 8 days in 14 days.
We bought the 12 day Alpin Pass.
Saalbach is a very good walking area. It certainly exceeded our expectations, we had booked the holiday with a degree of uncertainty about the suitability of the resort for two weeks walking. The resort is good for all levels of walking. All our walks except one started and finished in the valley, the exception being the walk over to Zell am See. The hills and mountains around the valley are not that high and this means that you can walk to the tops and along ridges. The height also means that there are no permanant snowfields or glaciers. We found the top (western) end of the valley particularly attractive with some excellent peaks to climb. There are quite a few mountain inns and restaurants around, but they tend to be lower down and on some of the walks we did there were none except at the start and the finish of the walks. The bus service and cable cars means getting around the valley is easy. The main problem with the transport is that some of the lifts closed around 4pm, earlier tham we would have liked.
All the walks that we did were covered by the Saalbach Hinterglemm Wanderkarte at a scale of 1:25000 published by Mayr, this map was obtainable locally. Kompass map 29 at scale 1:50000 "Kitzbuheler Alpen" and Kompass map 30 at scale 1:50000 "Saalfelden Leoganger Steinberge" cover a larger area and are useful if intending to do walks ourside of the Glemm Valley.
There are local walking badges. The stamping books are available at the tourist office. The badges work on a points system which required walking to summits and huts etc. We managed the "Gold Rucksack with Diamond" the hardest of the badges to get. This wasn't planned, but we realised near the end of the holiday that it was within our reach. We are both a bit fanatical about the badges, though once home they are tucked away. we could have made it easier on ourselves as some stamping points appeared more than once, but we insisted on a revisit for the second stamp.
The walks have been described in chronological order.
Some of the photos are in a Flickr set.
|
WW Wetterkreuz
WSp Spieleckkogel WSt Stemmerkogel WPS Pinzgauer Spaziergang WT Tristkogel WSH Saalachtal Hohenweg WTH Talschluss Hohenweg |
WSB Spielberghorn
WPW Panarama Walk WSS Staffkogel and Sonnspitz WGB Grune Boden Hut WG Geisstein WH Hochkogel |
| Some extra photos. | |
 |
 |
| Our hotel. | Looking over hotel garden to the church. Flickr |
 |
 |
| The village. | Water feature in village centre. |
 |
 |
| Autumn festival offering. Flickr | Straw family. Flickr2 |
This page was last updated on 6th February 2011.