MoneyWeek has highlighted three Alpine escapes in Austria, ranging from a five-star ski base to an autumn food festival.
Hotel Nesslerhof in the Großarl valley offers year-round hiking and easy skiing. Guests can pre-order ski equipment and collect it from a personal locker, then cross the road to the Kieserlbahn cable car, which serves the Grossarltal-Dorfgastein ski area – part of the Ski amadé network, Europe's largest. The area has 70km of slopes and 18 modern lifts, with guaranteed snow from December to April. Rooms cost from £428 a night including breakfast.
Schlosshotel Fiss, in the Tyrolean village of Fiss at 1,438m, is hosting a culinary autumn food festival from 5-25 September. The programme includes wine tastings, cooking workshops, food-themed hikes, distillery visits, herb garden walks, yoga by Lake Wolfsee and evening sauna sessions with singing bowls. Winter rates start at €746 a night on a full-board basis.
Specialist operator Powder Byrne, which has organised family ski holidays for 40 years, is introducing a ski clinic for adults this year. Its winter highlights include Christmas at Hotel Valsana in Arosa, Switzerland, from £19,146 for a family of four for seven nights with first-class train transfers, and Easter at Hotel Maiensee in the Austrian Arlberg at 1,800m, from £19,256 for a family of four for seven nights.