If you’re looking for a small town that is great for walking with good restaurants and facilities, then I cannot recommend Kitzbühel enough.

Firstly, the train journey to get there is a joy of verdant hills, clear water rivers and mountains. Secondly, Kitzbühel prides itself on its walking and outdoors activities. Famed for its ski slopes, those same slopes become a walkers’ paradise in summer. I spent two lovely days walking the hills, going around fresh-water lakes (great for a paddle and a cool-off) and generally lowering the blood pressure.

Walking in Austria is taken seriously but is still a lot of fun. It is also easy to navigate for someone like me – I can read a map, I can figure out a route, but I have a limited sense of direction so need help. You can pick up a handy walking map that suggests routes and tells you about facilities en route, as well as difficulty ratings for the terrain – very useful when you are walking up/down very steep sections that are used for ski downhill racing!

Like a lot of countries I have walked in, it also comes with a signposting system. It takes some of the challenge out of navigation but you still need a map and to know where you’re going – they are more like helpful points of orientation but perfect for little old me.

The photos below show you some of the stunning views and also the signposting system – I rather liked it.

Kitzbühel is an interesting town in-and-of itself, too. It was first settled in the middle Bronze Age, based on mining and smelting metals up in the hills. It has fallen under various Kingdoms and empires over time – most notably being given its own town charter in the 13th century and being part of Tyrol. The Tyrolean identity is one that I started to learn about in Trento on holiday a couple of years ago; Trento and that part of the Dolomites in Italy are also part of historic Tyrol but Tyrol itself was split between Austria and Italy in the 19th Century and the changes brought, from an Austrian perspective, by the changes and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was an identity that has links with nationalism and fascism in Italy in the early 20th century, but is a proud identity for this part of Austria.

One of the other reasons I picked Kitzbühel, in addition to the train journey and the walking, was the chance to attend an ATP Tennis Tournament. I’ve been a tennis fan for a long time but I’ve never been to a regular tournament. Checking through the calendar as part of planning this trip, the Kitzbühel Open popped up as a possibility and I spent Monday at the opening day of the tournament. Between the centre court and the outside show court, I was able to watch 3 singles matches and a doubles match – an excellent day out for a general admission ticket of 19 Euros. The tournament itself is lovely – an ATP 250 event, so it gets a few big names and is a chance for upcoming players to gain valuable ATP world ranking points. The organisers were delighted when an Austrian player made it through qualifying and fell in to the first round slot opposite another Austrian player, thus guaranteeing some local interest in the first few days of the tournament. There was a great buzz about the place – the Monday opening day is ‘Kitz für Kids’, wi!th all sorts of play on words on this (hence the title of this blog). It was a way of making the event accessible and inspiring to local children and some from further afield – from the matching t-shirts, there were quite a lot of youth teams in attendance from Austria and Germany. The players were really accommodating that day – doing extra autograph sessions and Q&As. I had a super day out as a tennis fan.

Also, whilst out walking on Sunday, I saw an excellent way to obtain the Sunday papers; a few copies are tied to lampposts with an honesty box for payment. I picked up a copy of the local paper and caught up on the local news and was also grateful for its excellent weekend international sports coverage. It’s one of the lowest-tech forms of automated service I’ve seen and I was tickled by it.

I am typing this in Budapest – grabbing a few minutes before the museums open. I have a few days here to learn about another new city; a potter around last night shows me that there is a lot of gorgeous architecture and history around, so I’m looking forward to it. Viszlát!