The first snow takes the sound out of the valley and gives it a light you will not find anywhere else. Christmas, New Year, half-term – or simply a week in which nothing has to happen.
There is a moment just after the first heavy snowfall: the road is cleared, the meadows are untouched, and over it all lies a silence you could almost reach out and hold. That is when Altaussee is entirely itself.
At 712 metres the snow falls reliably, and because the valley is narrow, it stays. The lakeside trail is cleared and in January belongs to locals, their dogs, and the few guests who booked early enough. High above, the sun stands over the mist on the Loser while the frost still hangs in the air down by the lake.
And when dusk begins at four, the day moves indoors: two fireplaces, one long table, a baby grand from 1930. Winter is the season in which this house is most a house.
No drive, no ticket, no plan required. Open the garden gate, and winter begins.
Anyone with a dog knows the look: the door opens, an untouched white field lies outside – and the rest is pure joy. The paths start right at the house, it is a few minutes down along the Puchen stream to the lake, and the fenced garden keeps everyone reliably together, even in deep snow.
It is the same round as in summer and yet an entirely different one: you hear your own footsteps, smell the woodsmoke from the chimneys, and come back with red cheeks to find that someone has already put the kettle on.
First snow around the house · Altaussee
In the Ausseerland, Christmas is not an event but a state of being. There is no bustle, no horizon of fairy lights – instead candles in the windows, snow on the roofs and customs that never stopped.
The Christmas market in Altaussee stays deliberately small and regional; the Ausseer Advent in the spa park of Bad Aussee fills four weekends with the loveliest way of taking your time. In early December St Nicholas and the Krampus walk through the villages, and from St Thomas's Night on 21 December to Perchten Night on 5 January the Rauhnächte lie over the valley – those twelve nights in which the Ausseerland traditionally burns incense, falls quiet and lets the old year go.
The house is made for exactly this: the table seats up to fourteen, and the china and glasses are there to be used. Downstairs the tiled stove warms the salon, upstairs the open fire crackles, and on Christmas Eve someone always turns up at the 1930 baby grand who can still more or less manage “Silent Night”. The breakfast basket arrives on 25 December too.
Altaussee is not a ski circus. Everything lies close together: the cleared lakeside trail on the doorstep, the cross-country track at the Blaa Alm, the cable car up the Loser. You can do something different every day – or the same thing every day, because it was that good.
The finest discipline in the Ausseerland needs no equipment at all: the trail around Lake Altaussee is 7.5 kilometres long, almost level, and cleared in winter – as manageable with a pram as with grandparents. Along the way stands a bench you will sit on far longer than you intended.
Where the cleared path ends, the best part begins. A classic winter walk leads to the Blaa Alm; above it the terrain opens up for snowshoe walkers and ski tourers. Get up early and the dawn light on the peaks is yours alone – and the feeling of having achieved something lasts all day.
Altaussee is one of the four cross-country centres in the Ausseerland – and thanks to the altitude around the Blaa Alm, particularly reliable for snow. Freshly groomed early in the morning, mist between the spruces, nobody else about: there are few better ways to begin a winter's day.
The Loser Panoramabahn takes you up step-free and without queueing – and at the top begins the panorama that made the mountain's name: Dachstein, Sarstein, Trisselwand, and the lake between them. The ski area is family-sized rather than vast, with more than 1,000 metres of vertical, freeride terrain and its own children's area.
Nine kilometres of natural toboggan run on the Loser panorama road – the longest way in the Ausseerland to get back down to the valley. Up on foot or comfortably by cable car; down at your own risk. Experience suggests everyone will want to go straight back up.
That too is taken care of. The Altaussee Salt Mine keeps the same temperature all year – this is where more than 6,500 works of art were hidden during the Second World War, among them the Ghent Altarpiece. There is an ice rink in the village, the story of the summer retreat in the Literature Museum, and in January and February the Ausseer carnival takes over with its drumming women and Flinserl costumes – UNESCO intangible cultural heritage since 2011.
Freshly groomed in the morning · a track in the Ausseerland
The finest track is the one you are first on in the morning. In the Ausseerland that is not a matter of luck but of what time you get up.
Around the Blaa Alm the snow lies long and reliably thanks to the altitude. The track is set for classic and rolled for skating, the routes are short enough for a first attempt and lovely enough to ski three times over. Never stood on narrow skis before? This is exactly where you learn – flat, soft and without an audience.
And afterwards? Back to the house, wet things into the dryer, fire lit. There are days when that is the best part.
Forest paths where the snow stays on the branches. A bench by the shore waiting for no one. Dawn light on the peaks. And the last few kilometres of a journey you would rather not cut short.
There are winter days when you need not go out at all. The snow falls in large, slow flakes, settles on the railing and on the branches – and inside it only grows warmer.
Then you stay in the Swiss pine bed until it is light, make coffee, take a blanket to the window and watch. Later perhaps a board game, a book, someone at the piano. The kitchen is equipped well enough for an afternoon at the stove to count as an outing, and the washing machine and dryer take in everything the day in the snow left behind.
And at night, best of all: sleep in Swiss pine beds while outside the world turns white and quiet.
Towels, bed linen and breakfast are our department. This one is yours – tried and tested, with a wink, and meant seriously all the same.
What you do not need to pack: bed linen, towels, breakfast, wood for the two fireplaces, bowl and basket for the dog – and a bad mood.
The days between Christmas and Epiphany, New Year's Eve, the half-term holidays – or a quiet week in January when the valley is almost yours alone. Send us your no-obligation enquiry and we will reply within a day.
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