Olaf E. Roalkvam: Winter Sports

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 17:24:28 GMT

Top 10 places to beat the winter blues

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 17:23:52 GMT

Sweet ski deals at home and abroad!

Ski Resorts

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 23:08:37 GMT

Ski Resorts:

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:04:05 GMT

Skiing Up the Slopes, Powered by the Wind

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:02:50 GMT

Ski Report: Real Powder Hounds Allowed

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 11:55:33 GMT

Visit Jokkmokk(Sweden)

In the midst of remote, densely forested, marshy country, JOKKMOKK is a welcome oasis. Once wintertime Sami quarters, the town is today a renowned handicraft centre, with a Sami high school keeping the language and culture alive. The ájtte Museum (mid-June to Aug daily 9am-6pm; rest of year Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat & Sun noon-4pm; Oct-April closed Sat; 40kr) on Kyrkegatan is the place to see some of the intricate work. Have a glance, too, at the so-called Lapp Kyrka , in which corpses were interned in wall vaults during winter, waiting for the thaw when the Sami could go out and dig graves - the temperatures in this part of Sweden plunge below -35°C in winter. The great winter market still survives, now nearly 400 years old, held on the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of each February, when 30,000 people gather in town. It's the best time to be in Jokkmokk, and staying means booking accommodation a good six months in advance. A smaller, less traditional autumn fair at the end of August is an easier though poorer option. The tourist office is at Stortorget 4 (mid-June to mid-Aug daily 9am-7pm; during winter market Thurs-Sun 8am-6pm; rest of year Thurs-Sat 8.30am-4pm; tel 0971 121 40, www.jokkmokk.se/turism ). In summer there should be no problem getting a place at the HI hostel at Åsgatan 20 (tel 0971/559 77; under £5/$8); just follow the signs from the station. The campsite is 3km east on route 97.

Read more about Jokkmokk:

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 12:18:53 GMT

Want to snowboard? Some resorts say not here!

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 12:18:20 GMT

A Portrait of Turin: 2006 Winter Olympic host

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 11:59:43 GMT

Skiing in Zell Am See(Austria)

ZELL AM SEE is the quintessential Austrian resort, a compact town of picture-postcard perfection, with a lake on one side and an impressive mountain hinterland on the other. A skiing and hiking centre in its own right, Zell is also within easy striking distance of the Glemmtal resorts of Saalbach and Hinterglemm to the northwest, while the village of Kaprun to the south provides access to year-round glacier skiing below the Kitzsteinhorn . Other classic alpine excursions within reach are the two mountain reservoirs in the shadow of the Kitzsteinhorn, trips along the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse , which crosses the Hohe Tauern mountains to the south, and the magnificent Krimml waterfalls to the west. Two folk traditions with which Zell is associated are the Krampusläufen on December 5, when folk wearing demonic masks take to the streets, and the Hogmoar wrestling competition, a 500-year-old trial of strength for local shepherds that takes place on midsummer's day near the summit of the 2117-metre Hundstein, which rises above the lake to the east. More here:

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:22:44 GMT

Happy New Year 2006!

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:15:28 GMT

How to travel to Norway and the Norwegian Ski Resorts

Norway is closer to the UK than people might think - only two hours by air, and with numerous flight departures every day, it could not be easier to get there.

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Thu, 29 Dec 2005 14:49:59 GMT

Planning a trip to the Olympic Games in Turin 2006?

"Do you know Turin?" asked Nietzsche. "It is a city after my own heart ? a princely residence of the seventeenth century, which has only one taste giving commands to everything, the court and its nobility. Aristocratic calm is preserved in everything; there are no nasty suburbs." Although TURIN 's traffic-choked streets are no longer calm, and its suburbs are as dreary as any in Italy, the city centre's gracious Baroque thoroughfares, opulent palaces, sumptuous churches and splendid collections of Egyptian antiquities and northern European paintings are still there - a pleasant surprise to those who might have been expecting satanic factories and little else.

Read more here:

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 17:42:48 GMT

Visit the Santa Claus Village in Lapland(Finland)

Relatively easy to reach by rail from Ostrobothnia or Kainuu, ROVANIEMI is touted as the capital of Lapland, though it's more an administrative than cultural capital, and the tourists who arrive on day-trips from Helsinki expecting sleighs and tents are normally disappointed. The wooden huts of old Rovaniemi were razed by departing Germans at the close of World War II, and the town was completely rebuilt during the late 1940s. Alvar Aalto's bold but impractical design has the roads forming the shape of reindeer antlers - fine if you're travelling by helicopter but it makes journeys on foot far longer than they need be. Rovaniemi is a likeable enough town, though most visitors only use it as a short-term stopover, or to study Sami culture.

Read more here:

Tue, 27 Dec 2005 14:50:41 GMT

Winter holiday in Austria in 2006?

It's the spectacular, snowcapped mountains of regions like the Tyrol that provide the most familiar images of Austria - a landscape of jagged peaks and rampaging rivers, giving way to green pastures studded with onion-domed churches. Yet Austria is by no means all alpine vistas: the country stretches across central Europe for some 700km, from the shores of the Bodensee in the west to the edge of the flat Hungarian plain in the east. Far removed from the archetype are the wetlands and reed beds of Burgenland, and the dramatic sequence of stopes that carve their way up the Erzberg in Styria. In Upper and Lower Austria in particular, a predominantly low-key landscape of gentle rolling hills and vineyards can come as something of a surprise to first-time visitors. Yet this fertile, low-lying northern half of the country is, in fact, where the majority of Austrians live and work, many of them within commuting distance of the capital, Vienna - the country's chief tourist destination after the alpine regions. Read more here:

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 21:34:11 GMT

Ski Bulgaria

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:19:11 GMT

I wish you all a peaceful christmas and a happy new year.

Editor and owner of this blog:

Olaf E. Roalkvam

Norway

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:28:17 GMT

Journeys: Hut–to–Hut Skiing: Answering the Call of the Trail

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 19:31:59 GMT

Small French Ski Resorts

Self-catering chalets, large apts & small hotels. Good skiing. ABTA

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:34:46 GMT

Environment Impact of Snow Sports

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 14:44:31 GMT

Ski Holiday in Austria

Beautiful family ski Hotel Austria Superb facilities. Snow sure area

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:07:47 GMT

Ski Central
This should be the first stop off point for any skiing enthusiast. It's an index of useful skiing sites, containing over 4,000 destinations ranging from resort information to equipment hire to ski magazines. It's divided up pretty niftily too. Of course, there's no guarantee you'll find exactly what you're after, but with this sort of browsing it's likely you'll find something you hadn't realised was essential. One niggle is that it's too American biased, but don't let that put you off.

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 20:09:57 GMT

If you fancy working and skiing, then take a look at Matt Allwright's report about working as a chalet maid in France, then check out Dougie Vipond's snowboarding report from Saas Fee in Switzerland..

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 16:59:09 GMT

Cross Country Skiing in Norway

Sat, 17 Dec 2005 20:09:29 GMT

Enjoy some of Norway’s best ski destinations this winter.

Voss, Geilo and Kongsberg are our ski package destinations. Alpine skiing, telemark-style and snowboarding are all available.

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 16:07:49 GMT

Ski Norway & Lillehammer- Endless opportunities to experience nature
The Lillehammer region is famous for the spectacular local ski terrain and the many local winter sports activities. Close proximity to Northern Europe's best cross-country mountains at Nordseter/Sjusjøen, with 350 km of ski trails and the short distance to the Hafjell Alpine Centre, makes the region and exciting and all-round ski travel destination.

Sjusjøen, Nordseter and Øyerfjell offer approximate 350 km of dual-track cross-country trails in relatively easy forest and mountain terrain, and are connected to the network of trails in Lillehammer and Hafjell and with the Olympic tracks at the Birkebeiner Ski Stadium as well.

More info about skiing in Norway >