Skiing in Germany: Oberwiesenthal

Jasper and the boards, prior to skischule.

The kids' semester break at school comes in mid-February, so we had a free week to figure out what we should do with them at home. Naturally, you go somewhere!

Friends told us about a ski place on the Czech border that they go every year, so this made the decision for us. It is much cheaper than Austria or Switzerland, and they recommended the ski school program. We booked a room in a pension on the Czech side of the border (the ski mountain is actually on the German side), rented a car, and took off on Wednesday.

Ski school lessons are wonderful concepts. They take your kids from 10-4, teach them to ski, feed them, and let you run off an do whatever you want! Amazing. We went cross country skiing on nice long stretches through the forest for two days.

It was 9 Euro/day to rent the gear, and if you cross country ski, they don't charge you a lift ticket. You just go. Unbelievable.

Why would they not try to make money on this? They would in America! Our American business-heads are constantly getting spun around here. Why not try to make money on every single tiny thing you possibly can? 

Not important.

So we drove down from Berlin, about 3.5 hours. As Oberwiesenthal was sold out on lodging already, we stayed in a small and quite sad town of Jachymov just over the Czech border, about 15 minutes away over a snowy pass.

It was dinner time when we arrived in Jachymov. The town only has two restaurants and no grocery. Our host at the pension forbade us from going to the restaurant across the street, and the other restaurant was booked up for the whole night. A gas station attendant gave us directions in surprisingly good German to another town to the south called Karlovy Vary where there was a Tesco. This helped, since a Tesco (British grocery chain)  means a store where we could at least find food.

Inside the Tesco was a garish, flourescent-lit Thai restaurant called the "Zluty Bambus" which means "Golden Bamboo" in Czech. However to our tired eyes it cried out "Slutty Bimbos" and we immediately knew we had to dine at Slutty Bimbos in the dark and frozen Czech town of Karlovy Vary.

The meal, while memorable from a family experience standpoint, was the most pathetic and appalling food I've put in my mouth in years. The bamboo shoots tasted like rotten shoe rubber that destroyed whatever other fake flavors were present in the sauce and the chicken pieces. Well, what do you expect from Slutty Bimbos. Indeed!

Back in Jachymov, the air smelled like dirty wood smoke and oil burners. Our pension was clean and recently-renovated by a couple from Prague who bought the building cheap to take advantage of the German skier demographic coming down to Oberwiesenthal. But every second building in the town seemed shuttered or abandoned. Even the ones with lights in the windows looked extremely rough. I wondered why on earth so many houses were built and suddenly deserted. At one point the town would have had lots of life judging from the housing inventory.

The main road of Jachymov.

So I asked, and then I did some quick research. The pension owner told me the town used to house one of Czechoslovakia's main prisons for opponents of the regime. This was during the Communist time and it was closed shortly after 1989. That explained some of it.

Further research revealed some interesting facts. The area sits in the "Erzgebirge" ("Ore Mountains") and has been mined since the 1500's for silver, nickel, bismuth and uranium ore. The town's historic name was "Joachimsthal" ("St Joachim's Valley") and with the discovery of silver here in the early 1500's, it became Bohemia's richest region. The counts that ruled the area in that time started minting money with the silver and the coins were called "Joachimstalers."

The word Joachimsthaler eventually was shortened to "Thaler." In Dutch it turned into "Daler" which year later led to the term "Dollar" in the US.

The fact that we had inadvertantly stumbled onto a town that is the namesake for the US currency unit is another one of those happy accidents of travel.

What else happened here? Well, glad you asked. In the 1800's Marie Curie discovered the element Radium in ore samples of uraninite from Joachimsthal. The radium exists in many spa and hot springs around this area and is the basis for curative Radon spas, of which the world's first was opened in this town in 1906.

In 1938, the town and its surrounding areas were annexed by Germany in the Sudetenland "Peace in our time" exchange. After WWII, German residents were replaced again by Czech settlers and they changed the name back to the Czech "Jachymov." The Communist party took control of Czechoslovakia in 1948 and established prison camps in and around the town. Prisoners were forced to work in the uranium mines nearby under predictably horrendous conditions. The mines were shut down in 1964.

The rest of the Communist time did not see much in the way of urban development, so the remains of the once-proud town are all you have to consider now. 

Beautiful Jachymov today.

Some sprucing up is needed, but it is cheap!

Oberwiesenthal feels like a US resort did in the 80's: lots of individual commercial activity but not dominated by one gigantic institution. All the rental shops, ski school, restaurants, and many lifts are operated independently. (Though there is an option to buy a ski pass valid on all lifts.)

Their ski school was amazing for many reasons.

The meeting area is pure chaos with kids ages 3 - 14 until 9:59 when Katija Sweet (the owner) comes out into the meeting area with a portable mic to direct newcomers, beginners and experts alike on where to go to start their class. By 10:05 the plaza is empty save a few parents rushing to grab a forgotten hat or wandering over to the wooden hut serving up hot drinks, pretzels and currywurst.

Somehow in those few minutes they have miraculously formed groups of 4-6 students with each teacher who then partners-up with another who has kids of the same skill level to make a double groups so one instructor can stay at the top and one at the bottom of the bunny slope giving instruction and challenges to the children to improve their skills. It seems to be a recurring thing in Germany: all is chaos then a bell rings and everything falls into place seamlessly.

The first day, the kids were in the slightest incline, but learned to stop and go quite efficiently. The second day, they moved up to the next slope and learned basic turns and how to get on/off a T-bar. The third day, after a few warm-up runs, they rode the gondola to the top and spent 1.5 hrs practicing turns all the way down.

At the end, happy and quite proud of themselves, they were awarded a little pass with their level 2 certification signed-off. The booklet has cute cartoons showing that they not only learned how to control their skis but how to be a respectful skier as well.

Now that we know the drill, next year will be a breeeze. We will definitely rent the downhill gear and ski with our little guys from the top of the mountain! Some pics:

Cass reviews the XC map to plan the day.

Mid-day lunch stop. Sure hope the kids are doing ok!

Lots of little huts in the forest along the XC trails. True to cliche, many held large beefy dudes relaxing with their schnapps.

Cody takes on the hill. Really amazing to watch your kid learn an entirely new sport in 2 days.

On Friday night they let all the children carry torches down the mountain. Yes you read that correctly. Ours will do this next year.

Miraculously no one was maimed, burned or otherwise crippled. Would Americans give 7 year-olds big flaming sticks to ski down a hill with? No they would not. Yet somehow it totally works here. I can't describe it.

Every town has the church. 

One of the trails we tried had not been groomed and we soon found out why: not enough snow coverage in the forest. So we hiked back to the tracked routes after a little sojourn.

Day 2 I hope the kids are ok!

At the end of day #2 we gathered on the deck of the ski school to have a beer and pretzel in the fading sunlight and watch the kids.

Some sort of happy moment in the VW Golf. Yes we did an entire family ski trip in a VW Golf. #lifegoals

After day three of ski school. 

This is a very cool ATV with some sort of tank treads. 

You are required to stop and help people who are down! So helpful here!

Day three: the instructor preps the kids for the big gondola ride.

After day three, in which the kids skied down after riding the gondola to the top of the mountain. Talk about a proud parent moment!

FAB-U-LOUS! We all loved it. :)

On the way home we made a stop at the "Raucherkerzen" factory in tiny Crottendorf. What is a Raucherkerzen? Basically it is incense formed by materials excavated from the local mountains. The incense is formed into small triangle shaped forms not unlike US Candy Corn. You put the incense inside a wooden doll and when lit, the smoke comes out of their mouth and gives the appearance that it is actually smoking. This dolls, which can be woodsmen, soldiers, nutcrackers, etc,  are a popular item at the Christmas markets. Next to the dolls are the boxes of incense from Crottendorf.

So at Crottendorf you find the incense factory. Outside is a 20 meter tall "Kerzen" cone which houses an exhibit on the history of incense making in the town. It was all very random since who would come to Germany and go to the Raucherkerzen factory? Well, us I guess.

Backets full of Christmas incense. And local brandy bottles, you've always got those wherever you go.

Overall weekend report was super positive. The kids are on their way to ski-glory, mommy and daddy got a nice back to back Nordic ski workout days and we have a replenished Raucherkerzen supply for the holidays this year.