An Outdoorsmagic advertorial.
Autumn is fast approaching; falling leaves, shorter days; for most a sad farewell to the bliss of the summer months. Yet imagine a place where autumn is a season to rival, if not outdo, its celebrated predecessor. A place where as the autumn months approach, the stifling summer heat is overcome by the most pleasant of breezes, where the high-season overcrowding is replaced by an atmosphere of peaceful isolation, and the Autumnal sky turns more blue and more clear with each passing week.
This place is the Austrian Tirol, a haven for nature and a heaven for adrenaline junkies. Have you been mourning the end of summer? Do you crave one last getaway in the outdoors? The Austrian Tirol is the only place for your autumn trip.
This pretty Austrian province with its snow capped mountains, acres of unspoilt valleys and tranquil woodland belies a tough interior.
The Tirol has all the essential ingredients for nerve-jangling thrills and the most extreme of adventure sports and spills.
Steep drops, pounding white water, sheer cliff faces, challenging mountain paths, exhilarating wide open spaces and the great outdoors, mile after mile of it. It all comes naturally in the Tirol.
Tirolean river valleys are a paradise for white water rafting, canyoning and canoeing, plunging down from the mountains with almost indecent haste, while the mountains that give the rivers their speed, are the biggest draw if you want the vertigo thrill of a sheer drop, hundreds of feet beneath your climbing boots.
But don’t just climb up them, jump off them.
Abseiling down crevasses is a popular way to spend a weekend, pausing long enough only to paraglide past the eagles, and cruising down to land on the greenest meadows imaginable.
Fly into Innsbruck, (Austrian Airlines have a 3-times weekly direct flight from Gatwick) and within 45 minutes you can be at an outdoor event camp at Ötz - the first holiday and `wellbeing’ village in the Tirol with facilities and activities for the entire family, as well as professional help and all the equipment and skills on hand to free yourself in the mountains.
For details of active weekend offers, customised activity programmes and camps, visit the no frills, just thrills website at www.visittirol.co.uk.
