Skiing in Austria is hardly an unknown quantity - to many it's almost as familiar as "do-re-mi".
After all, Salzburgerland's claim
to fame is the cinematic blockbuster Sound of Music, and for me, its ski region- the Gastein Valley - does offer some of my favourite things that make up a fabulous ski holiday.
Things like: following the spicy scent of glühwein into the forest clearing to find a wooden hut with a glowing fire…Banging the snow off my boots, filling up on apfelstrudel with lashings of cream, while I waited for my toes to thaw…Or snuggling up under thick blankets in the back of a horse-drawn sleigh for a tour of the snow-covered countryside of the region.
This modern ski resort has a grand infrastructure that has grafted itself onto Gastein and over the past 70 years has transformed Gastein's lifestyle.
Winter has taken over from summer as the main holiday season here, and gentle leisure has given way to thrilling adventure.
Built across the side of a cliff, with staircases for streets, I admit, Badgastein is not the most conveniently laid-out ski resort.
Its lower neighbour Badhofgastein offers a flatter terrain for curling, skating and other traditional winter sports, and a blissfully easy walk to the ski lift.
Otherwise, for downhill skiing and snowboarding the steep-sided Gastein valley holds its head up in the premier division of Alpine resorts.
More than 40 lifts serve 218km of piste - and that, as Fraulein Maria might say, is a long, long way to ski. Not all in one ski area, but four, of differing characters.
The largest is an M-shaped arrangement, with Badgastein and Badhofgastein at each bottom end, covering an exceptional range of piste and powder skiing between 860 and 2,300 metres, with good nursery slopes in the central valley and long pistes on either side.
At 10.4km, for a top-to-bottom drop of 1,440m, Hohe Scharte Nord claims to be one of the longest downhill runs in the Eastern Alps, as well as being one of the most beautiful.
It was a great challenge to ski non-stop at the end of the day and, as I am a true ski-geek, I could link the lift ticket to the internet to track my up-and-down statistics through the day (and could have done so through the season if I had stayed), which is a great app for today's cutting-edge snow user.
The slopes are accessorised with all the latest gizmos including a snow park with jumps, rails and a half pipe for acrobatics, a self-timed slalom track and a knee-trembling suspension bridge strung out across the void from the top lift station. After you.
At the head of the valley, Sportgastein has amazing open slopes at high altitude - the top station at 2,680m is nearly at glacier level.
This is ideal for exciting off-piste skiing and reliable snow conditions in March and April when many other resorts run short on the white stuff.
Graukogel is Badgastein's original ski area, now rather overshadowed and out on a limb, but for that
reason it is well worth a visit on a busy morning.
Sure, the chair lifts may not have been modernised since 1947 but its sweeping forest pistes, which hosted the World Championships back in 1958, have lost none of their bite.
At the entrance to the valley, little Dorfgastein's lifts make what the Austrians call a "skischaukel" - an over-the-mountain link with the neighbouring valley and its pretty ski village of Grossarl.
Using the ski bus shuttle service, I headed this way for the strudel and dirndl factor: Austrian skiing at its most charming, with plentiful mountain huts and well-groomed intermediate pistes. For me this was a leisurely cruise through delightful scenery.
The two faces of Gastein - young and sporty versus stiff and sedate - somehow go together well.
You don't have to be a hypochondriac to appreciate a soak in the tub after a hard day's skiing, and if the hot water has special properties that mend a tired body, so much the better.
Spas are all the rage at the luxury end of the ski business, because forward-thinking resorts are beginning to worry about climate change and seeking to expand what they offer.
So the old spa business is in fact good for skiers too.
The healing powers of local springs brought visitors from the earliest times; Romans, Paracelsus, Mozart's mother and even Kaiser Wilhelm.
These days it may be more about wellness and pampering than the traditional cure, but Gastein's medicinal claims have a certain fascination, even to the casual visitor who arrives with no particular therapeutic agenda beyond the healing power of an active holiday.
And so it happened that an après-skier with only a sore pair of knees and a little stiffness in the lower back to complain about volunteered to sample the pièce de résistance of the famous Gastein cure - the Gastein Heilstollen caves. This experience involves a journey, if not quite to the centre of the earth, then two kilometres into the mountain, which is far enough.
The train carries around 50 people, all in this instance apparently Austrian.
As it progressed away from daylight and into darkness, the temperature on board rose inexorably.
There were five stops, each stop was for a different cave, hotter than the last, from 37° (first stop) to 41° (where the train terminates).
Let me tell you that 100% humidity feels hotter than it even sounds.
The hot cave has many benches. I flop onto one and try to pretend that the heat is pleasant, rather than claustrophobic (almost to the point of making me scream).
It works: before long I feel so relaxed that I drop off and wake myself with a little snore.
Surprisingly quickly, 30 minutes have passed. Later on, I discover that the caves contain a gas called radon.
Is that a bad gas or a good gas? I am not sure, but there is no denying the sense of relief with which I inhale a lung full of radon-free Alpine luft (air) at the end of the visit.
Visiting the Gastein caves is one of those things I am glad to have experienced.
But at the end of the day there may be simpler ways to soothe the muscles. Such as the immense open-air thermal pool at the top of the town; an excellent spa and sauna facility in my comfortable hotel; and the hot tap in my bathroom. Can't beat it.
