Schifahren Lienz Austria 1971

Entry posted on 29th December 2015 while the Womens World Cup slalom skiing competition is being held in Lienz (not to be confused with the Austrian city of Linz)

I want to be convinced that the  passport booth photo for this 7 day Ski Pass was taken several years previously but I fear , given the very thick turtle neck (is that right I am forgetting my English) sweater and the weird blank look caused by a boat/train trip from Harwich to southern Austria, that it was indeed taken at the time.

I will post a few photos before and after this date which will give more details of my first skiing holiday without my uncle Jochen.

For those interested - the Austrians used to and possibly still do use the wording "Schi" rather than "Ski". I suspect in all modern Austrian resorts they nowadays use "Ski". Another thing that can puzzle  - Skifahren (ski driving) or Skilaufen (ski walking/running). Nowadys with the popularity of cross country skiing it is fairly straightforward to differentiate - downhill you drive, cross country you walk. However I came to know it as Skifahren was used by Bavarians (southerners) to describe anything they did on skiis, while Skilaufen was used by northerners. Perhaps it can thus be traced back to the lack of  hills in the north.

However all German speakers . Prussians, bavarians, Austrians, Swiss, North Italian (South Tirol - confused??)  pronounce Ski as "Schi" ie as in Schweppes rather than Key if you get what I mean. I won't here try to go in to how the Germans pronounce Schweppes, thats another story for another time.