So it was time for the boys to have a weekend golfing. We started with the Ryanair.com website to find ourselves a cheap flight, hit the web to find accommodations, and then explored the possibility that there might be a suitable golf course locally. The result beyond belief!
Ryanair suggested we might like to fly for an obscenely low cost (how long are these going to last?) to Klagenfurt in Austria. Now we are well-travelled guys who have been around most of the world, but this one was a new one to us. Situated close to the Italian and Slovenian borders in southern Austria, things looked good –- lots of hills, water in the form of large lakes, and plenty of affordable accommodation. In the wint
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Ryanair suggested we might like to fly for an obscenely low cost (how long are these going to last?) to Klagenfurt in Austria. Now we are well-travelled guys who have been around most of the world, but this one was a new one to us. Situated close to the Italian and Slovenian borders in southern Austria, things looked good –- lots of hills, water in the form of large lakes, and plenty of affordable accommodation. In the winter, the area is for the skiers, but in the summer and autumn, the chalets are still there for the walkers and golfers to at rates that seemed excellent value.
Our search for accommodation gave us a real gem. A couple called Guenther and Heike Franzesko (www.ferienwohnung-kaernten.de ) own a simply beautiful chalet close to the lakes and only a half an hour or so from the golf courses, of which there were plenty.
We selected the course at Koestenburg, but there were another six or so excellent course in the neighbourhood. Suggest you take a look at www.kaernetn.at for a selection of courses and holiday hotels.
So what made the trip excellent? Well, the welcome from our hosts (ice cold beers for the boys) and their hospitality around the table of an evening and in the woods for walks of an afternoon. Germans and Austrians tend to be fitter and more earnest than us Brits, so we enjoyed deeper conversations than the norm and the real pleasures of clean forests, which when we visited in early June, were carpeted in wild blueberry and strawberry plants and, we were told, in the autumn, supplied quantities of wild mushrooms for locals to pick.
The reception at the golf course was warm too. We were made to feel VIPs both on the course and in the clubhouse. Not too many English society hack their way round here so with cold beers all round in the clubhouse and some excellent lunchtime meals – alles gut! The course was truly testing. The team play off between 13 and 22, but we all struggled, not with the length or the approaches to the greens, but the speed of the greens. With snow covering the course for around four months of the year, no damage can be done and it made for some electric putting.
The local town is Velden -– another gem. Like Cannes on a lake. Lots of great eateries bars clubs and, for those not teeing off at 8:30pm, casinos and ‘sexy bars’. We enjoyed the lack of English tourists, finding the town more of a genuine local experience than a holiday destination. With both Italy and Slovenia within 20 miles, there is loads of good touring and sightseeing.
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