Three Men on a Mountain: Paula's Tyrolean Story

Travellers' Tales is a series on this blog that hands the page over to other travellers, inviting them to share an experience worth remembering. This week the guest is Paula McInerney, who tells a story about the time she and her husband went skiing in Austria. Paula writes at Contented Traveller, the site she runs with Gordon. It carries their own stories, both inspiring and amusing, as well as the practical tips that help other people travel their own way — houseboats in Amsterdam, surrealist galleries in Strasbourg, cave houses in Turkey, five-star villas in Bali. The pair take a slightly left-of-centre approach to most things, and you can follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Kitzbühel, Austria. Picture: Paula, Contented Traveller.

The arrangement

We love to ski, and every January or February we go to Japan. Last year we decided to push on to Europe afterwards and see both Austria and Switzerland. We choose places for their culture, for the chance of a new perspective, and for the people we might meet. That last part is usually how I get myself into situations.

This trip had a complication. I was recovering from a broken leg, and six months after the break I had lost my nerve for the slopes. The saving grace of the places we pick is that there is plenty to see and do without skiing. I became the queen of the mountain cafes.

Man one: Sascha

Kitzbühel Tourism gave us a private ski instructor for our stay. Sascha was European chic and cool, a very accomplished skier, and good company to talk to. When he and Gordon went off to ski, he parked me from cafe to cafe along the lodge. It was Sascha who introduced me to the next character in this story.

Man two: the Tyrolean

I do attract trouble. I cannot help it. I collect unusual characters wherever I go and bring them back to Gordon. We were up a mountain in Kitzbühel when a behemoth of a man decided to talk to me — or chat me up. It was a fine line between the two.

I took him into the lodge cafe to meet Gordon. He told us he was not Austrian but Tyrolean, and that he had been to Australia. Then he kept asking me my age. Apparently his first experience had happened in Sydney, and Gordon is quite sure the man thought it had been with me. Having established that, he began banging the bell for shots of schnapps and trying to get Gordy drunk.

Picture: Paula McInerney.

And the quiet one

Gordon is quieter than I am. He spends a good deal of his time shaking his head at me, which is fair. He drank what he was given, watched the schnapps arrive, and said very little.

If travel has changed your life, inspired you or left you with a memory you cannot shake, you are welcome to contribute to this series. Send your posts to admin@europediaries.net.