Log Cabin Life – Carinthia

We have stayed in a wide variety of places in this part of the world – from our beautiful but not so cosy Zugspitze Iglu, a fabulously well equipped canvas “house” (in a snow storm) in the heart of the Black Forest earlier this year, my special birthday palace near Garmisch, and a medieval hotel in an equally medieval town…   But, we’ve never stayed in a log cabin, and before we leave Bavaria, a true mountain log cabin was very high on my list.

There are inevitably times in life when the idea of escaping to a log cabin seems like the best possible plan, far away from everything and everyone, with nothing to do but to get out and unwind in nature, and spend time with those you love.  It has to be the best kind of soul tonic, and I was determined to find such a place for our Halloween half term break.

To be honest, it took a bit of searching to find the perfect place.  I wanted somewhere that felt far enough out to feel like a sanctuary, but not too far that it was going to keep me awake at night worrying about every single noise outside (I suffer from an overactive imagination!). It needed to be somewhere where the setting gave the impression it had sprung up naturally like a mushroom in the middle of a forest – not plonked onto a spare bit of farmland somewhere looking totally out of place.    Ideally it would be up a mountain for that authentic feel, but not so far up that we would need a helicopter to get there.    And most importantly?   Somewhere so log cabin cosy that it made you want to move in, and  it most definitely had to have a fire to curl up in front of after a day’s hiking…

And happily, despite all of my demanding demands, we found the perfect place in Turracher Hohe in Carinthia (a part of Austria we haven’t explored much before…  Varying in size, there are four beautiful cabins here to choose from, and I fell in love with ours as soon as we walked through the door.  The friendly owners have thought of just about everything you need for a decent break, whether you are visiting in the summer and making the most of the hiking routes on your doorstep, or in ski season when you can actually ski from the door to the closest lift (it’s snow sure, and surrounded by a range of pistes to suit mostly a mostly intermediate/expert crowd, but there are a few beginner/nursery slopes!).  Our little wooden house was the nicest thing to come back to at the end of each day.

There will be those that think that a week not doing that much apart from trekking about, probably wasn’t all that exciting for our small people, but having spent the past five years either hiking up the side of a mountain, or chucking themselves down one, this is utterly the norm for them, and it’s so interesting to watch them just immediately find stuff to do on each walk.  I am not going to say that there wasn’t any moaning at all (the Small Boy is growing and permanently hungry at the moment!), but the majority of the time they were happy with ice lakes to skim stones across, juniper berries to forage (not enough to make gin with though sadly for me!), bogs to squelch through (an unplanned visitation thanks to poor map reading skills!) and patches of snow to use coats to sledge down.

The tiniest member of the family is a huge fan of his comfy back pack and will happily sleep through the first couple of hours usually, but we can stretch that a bit further if I have a bottle of warm milk in my pocket for half way round!  And it was thanks to the tiniest member of our family that we were usually up and about super early, which wasn’t  a hardship when you had this kind of scenery to admire…

All that exercise and fresh air meant of course we felt we had earned a decent alpine lunch somewhere – we loved the very friendly Edelweissalm for their hearty soups and schnitzels, and the best Kaiserschmarnn I have ever had…

Most of our afternoons and evenings were spent planning which routes we would hike the next day, or which country we would pop to for a bit of urban exploration (Lake Bled is an hour and a half away, and Ljubljana just a little further – more on Ljubljana soon!), soothing aching muscles in our little cabin’s sauna, and inevitably falling asleep in front of the “Big Hero” shaped fire…

This kind of Log Cabin life might not sound like everyone’s idea of a good week’s rest and relaxation, but it did the trick for us, and I would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this place.    Just don’t book it up too much OK?  I am going back*…

Thanks for a fabulous week little Log Cabin.   We will see you again for some skiing next time?

PS.  Don’t miss the star gazing at night.   There is absolutely no light pollution whatsoever, so put some warm clothes on and head out to the balcony when it’s dark…

PPS.   although the site is in German, the hosts speak excellent English – hab keine angst!!

* this is not a sponsored post, I just like to give credit where it’s due…