Bad Gastein reviews

All good, maybe we were lucky with the conditions, but all in all exelent.

I used to go to Bad Gastein in the 80's with my parents, loved it, then again in the 90's with friends. 2010 was there with my family during summer. Now I'm in my 50's and I have returned. Its still the place to be for me. Good slopes, and no serious lines to the skilifts. Good food, if you just manage to get into a restaurant. Many of the restaurants do not accept reservations for a single traveller.
I also miss the railway station restaurants pepper steak. Too bad, that restaurant wasnt there 2018.
Im going again this coming winter 2020. :)
Really looking forward to it.

Just Got back from this sleepy little austrian resort, well , if you want great snow and untracked powder head here, i went beg of march 09 and the snow was great, no lift qs, and untracked powder to be had all over, not much night life , best bar here is silver bullet, mostly nice big hotels so i pressume people stay in and enjoy there big bling hotels at night and chil out, best runs are head over to angertal then as high as you can go , then take the red off the back of the mountain, its like a 15k run, super fast and tree lined but best bit is theres loads off piste at side to dive into, only go to sportgastein on a bluebird day as its higher and open to the wind, but good motorway pistes here, big wide open ones, bad hofgastein also got some sic terrain for jibbing , loads trees here all over for playing in, dont go to bad gastein to party, but if you want a chill out and good ski in the day then its lovely place indeed, with a big waterfall the centre of attraction in the town, check out the red bull playstreets course whilst ya there its sic, the rail over the roof of restaurant is super sic.

I have had great piste and off-piste at Sportgasain: wide, fast and well-kept pistes and at least one very good (mindblowing for me) off-piste left from the Kreuzgogel.

Visited Bad Gastein on sports vacation 2025 with the family and stayed with half board at hotel Mondi. Traveled by train with Snälltåget.

SKIING
- Very good on the slopes despite a season with very little natural snow. Graukogel 100% closed...
- There was actually some natural snow during the week so it was at least a few days of shallow fresh snow skiing between the slopes, fun thought the kids
- It is relatively steep skiing on Stubnerkogel and the surrounding area, good to know when skiing with children
- The neighboring village Dorfgastein was very nice, we went 2 days here
- Sportgastein also well worth a day visit I think

ACCOMMODATION AND VILLAGE
- Large level difference in some parts of the village, for example, walking up to the lift from the excellent Hotel Mondi with children, well, it's probably not to be thought of, ruins the holiday, we bought a shuttle from the hotel pretty much every day
- Hotel Mondi was very good and about 10,000 SEK cheaper than Salzburger Hof at 1/2 board, and I who like "hearty food" think that their half board was more than well approved. The children appreciated the rather lavish desserts. Great breakfast. Good treatment. Guests from many different countries.
- A small warning for the apartment hotel rooms on the top floor, at least our room had the elevator machinery as the nearest neighbor

TRAIN JOURNEY
- It is a long journey with Snälltåget, with some problems up to 28-30 hours from Stockholm
- Simple old carriages that have been upgraded a bit
- Sportlovsvecka 9 is of course popular, it was a long train with lots of people in each carriage. A tip is to pre-book some times in the restaurant car and to bring spare food
- The breakfast packages are not very good, we had our own roll
- One and the same train all the way without changes and then only 1 hour transfer bus last bit, good!
- We chose to book our own compartment, it is nice of course but expensive
- There is a little camping over the train ride but if you are used to "fixing" it goes unexpectedly well. Have previously traveled with Snälltåget to Berlin but this trip I experienced as better, a little unclear why, somehow our carriage moved more quietly this time, not so jerky = it is possible to sleep, maybe upgraded suspension?
- A good thing on our trip - despite a lot of travelers - is that the staff kept the toilets reasonably fresh all the way, this is not always the case, and this means a lot for the overall impression. Of course, a lot depends on which travelers are on board
- Those who work on these trains are worthy of praise, no easy job.
- The return journey I think started about 1730 from Bad Gastein, so we skied large parts of the last day as well, this is a kind of train bonus in addition to the environmental aspect
- Yes, it's a bit of an unexpected conclusion but it's relatively easy to go by train all the way

Photo from far down the valley in Dorfgastein.

Lower peaks and less extreme skiing than in other alpine villages such as Verbier and Engelberg. But there are nice and easily accessible off-piste skis around Bad Gastein and also in Sportgastein, where there are usually fewer people. Generally, few people go off-piste in BG, which means that it doesn't get attended right away!
Beautiful forest skiing on Graukogel. Before the lift opens for the season, it's fine to ride up here.

Wonderful little ski resort with classic après ski

Great place to go on holiday for the family or for off-piste enthusiasts. Bad luck with a little dump this year but when it comes there are incredible opportunities. Norden (nordabfahrt) is recommended, with everything from very steep to medium-difficult lines to choose from. Absolutely fantastic ride that ends at the "customs" between sportgastein and Böckstein, the bus goes every 30 minutes up to sportgastein again.

Negative = a lot of Swedes
The nightlife is well known and holds the highest class for a winter resort in my opinion, large selection of possibilities.

I spent 3 wonderful days in Bad Gastein week 4 2022 and here is the little summary I can do.

Skiing: We had a bit of a bad weather with the weather 2 of the days, as the strong winds only allowed the cabin up on Stubnerkogel (the main mountain you start from if you live in Bad Gastein) only to go to the center. We solved this by taking a long stretch of transport that we found behind Ahornhütte which took us to the B11 (which is the best piste on Stubnerkogel) and then down to Angertal. From here you can climb Schlossalm, and here the cabins' opening hours did not seem as affected by the wind. The rides on Schlossalm are long and lovely and a little more varied than on Stubnerkogel, where the majority of the slopes are of the more difficult kind in my opinion. I would generally say that it is not very beginner-friendly, and especially not in the afternoons when it easily became very snowy and bumpy in places, especially the last bit down to the villages. But until lunch, the slopes are absolutely fantastic.

Infrastructure: I must say that I am incredibly impressed by the lift capacity. I can not remember that we stood in line for any lift more than 5 minutes, if this is because we did not go during the high season I leave unsaid, but we went Friday-Sunday and we barely noticed people in the lift queue even though it was over the weekend. The lifts are fast and comfortable, and you notice that a lot has been invested in it. To get around, you can take the ski buses that run at regular intervals, and this worked great.

The food: The food was good, consisted of the usual (schnitzel, gröstl and goulash soup) and did not cost the shirt. We had lunch at Rossalm, Jungerstube and Aeroplanstadl, and were very happy with all of them, where Jungerstube stood out with its excellent gröstl and apple strudel. However, I must recommend you all to book a table at Landgasthof Klapotetz. An extremely cozy crawl space with 3 tables and not a tourist nearby (except for us who did our research). Mega portions of lots of good food are served here, where I myself ate a cordon bleu on wild boar, which was the highlight of the trip in terms of food. A beer rarely cost more than 4 € which is very affordable.

The village: Maybe not the most cozy in the world, but there is plenty to do. I can recommend taking an afternoon at Felsentherme and enjoying swimming and relaxing.

Nightlife: We were only at Silver Bullet the first night we got there, and considering that it was only seated dining, I can not make an optimal assessment of how it can be, but we had fun anyway. Mix of eurotechno and "regular" bangers. Learn to be very clear without restrictions.

Plus
+ The slopes
+ The lifts
+ Maten
+ Easy to get here. Take the flight to Munich and then train from the airport all the way to BG

Minus
-Sickly many Swedes and Danes (but we knew that)
-Not the world's coziest village
-Sportgastein is wind sensitive

BAD GASTEIN, AUSTRIA
The first impression of Bad Gastein was that it was a cozy, sleepy little mountain village with lovely skiing. As we walked around after arrival it felt as if the village had experienced its best days. Many restaurants and shops were closed, if they were renovated or closed for good it was hard to see.
We were there last week in January 2019. It was a heavy snowstorm that pulled in over the alps in that crank, we heard nothing about it in place, but found out when we called home. Avalanche warnings were issued in the villages around Bad Gastein.
That meant that off-piste skiing was fantastic, but it was a little nasty to hear afterwards how much snow actually came during that week.

NIGHT LIFE
The nightlife probably suited young people and young adults better than middle-aged boys and young guys. Me (52 years) and my son (13 years) were not that impressed. However, the only apron we were on was perfectly ok, but a little bad with people.

SKIING
The skiing here is suitable for both beginners and more advanced riders. It was absolutely fantastic off-piste skiing and absolutely ok piste skiing. The slopes were well maintained and contained a good mix of light, medium and difficult slopes. A variety of off-piste skiing was what attracted us to go there and we were not disappointed.
There were quite a few people when we were there which was noticeable when we went down to the village in the afternoons; the only (?) Transport route down was full of riders of varying skill. Some days it felt a little nasty and even dangerous.
We were lucky enough to go when it snowed every day and night, so we had plenty of powder every day, except for the last day when the sun was shining. Even the sunny day contained fantastic skiing, but it quickly became slush in the slopes.

We bought a package with travel, lift pass, accommodation with half board, rental equipment for both of us. The trip was a last minute trip, so it was greatly reduced in price, yet it went on about 18,000 for both of us.

THE FOOD
The food was good and there was a great variety. If you brought your lunch bag, it could get away very cheaply, we had our own lunch on the slopes. We paid about SEK 50 for both of us when we traded lunch with us from the store. On the slope, a lunch cost much like the Swedish mountains. We paid approx. SEK 350 for each hamburger plate with French fries, a beer and a Coke. Down in the village the lunch was a little cheaper, there were some small fast food outlets that were good and relatively cheap. We would recommend eating fondue, we were on a fondue night and it was the highlight of the week in terms of food.

Plus
-Offpiståkningen
-The food, especially the fondue evening
-The variation on the slopes
-Rodelbanan

Minus
-The price of the trip
- Very closed in the village
-Information about, for example, the location of the tour leaders
- Breakfast at the hotel

Summary
It was a more expensive trip than we thought, but the off-piste ride made it worth the money. I don't know if I would go there again, much depending on what it looked like in the village, with everything closed.
I would rather go back to, for example, Avoriaz in France, which is an incredibly cozy village with fantastic skiing and even better food.
If you go to Bad Gastein we would recommend that you try the toboggan run, it was long and very fun to go. It was an experience to try.