Freephone: 0800 496 4996
Do you ever glance across in envy at someone effortlessly floating down the slopes magically perfecting their parallel turns? Chances are they are Austrian and grew up in the Alps. But do all Austrians learn to ski from birth? We asked our intern, Laura, to give us the lowdown.
In a funny twist of fate, Laura’s aunt was once the tour manager for Club Europe ski school trips in 2003, including one of our most long-standing clients – Wymondham College! Laura is here on an Erasmus exchange programme. She comes from Vienna and of course she grew up skiing.
She started when she was 3 years old in Bad Gastein with her family and has skied regularly ever since, catching the local bus with friends to the resort of Semmering – how cool is that?
School ski trips are a mandatory part of the Austrian curriculum, where downhill skiing is the national sport and a source of great pride. Her first ski trip was to Nassfeld, also in Austria, staying in a youth hostel and having no sleep at all, probably also mandatory for any school trip. Novices will be glad to hear that Laura’s worst memory was of her second ski holiday when she had to go up the mountain without her parents, “I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to get down again”. She survived and even tried her hand at snowboarding but says “At 180 cm, I found it really hard to coordinate my upper body and my hands, so was very glad to go back to skiing”. For now, she’ll stick to honing her skills on tricky mogul fields, her favourite!
Laura’s advice to teachers is to definitely take their students skiing as it is a wonderful opportunity to pass on your passion for the sport. “It is so wonderful to see how quickly students progress, even in a sport they may never have tried before.”
If you are thinking about leading a school ski trip, go to our ski website or call our Freephone number 0800 496 4996.
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