Pongau

Village in the upper Pongau, part of the Ski Amadé ski area.

The grandest Gastein spa resort. Belle Époque and Art Nouveau architecture clinging to a cliff face. The Gasteiner Wasserfalle cascade through the centre. Radon thermal springs. Emperor Franz Joseph I was a regular visitor. UNESCO World Heritage candidature underway. Cultural renaissance in progress.

Bad Hofgastein is the sensible choice in the Gastein Valley for travelers who want thermal spa access and good skiing without the vertical drama of Bad Gastein. It sits on relatively flat valley floor terrain, which means easier walking, more accessible slopes, and the Alpentherme spa as a comfortable centerpiece.

Every January, Bischofshofen hosts the final stage of the Vierschanzentournee (Four Hills Tournament), the most prestigious event in ski jumping, and crowds of 15,000 or more fill the Paul Ausserleitner Schanze hill.

The quietest and least developed of the three Gastein Valley spa villages, sitting at the entrance to the valley at about 835 metres. Shares the valley's radon thermal water and ski connection with Bad Gastein and Bad Hofgastein but without either town's Belle Époque infrastructure or resort pricing. A genuinely low-key base.

The Bischofsmütze, the "Bishop's Hat," is a distinctively double-peaked limestone summit that watches over Filzmoos from the west like a landmark in a fairy tale.

Hermann Maier, who survived a catastrophic fall at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and returned to win two gold medals in the same Games, grew up in Flachau. The piste named after him hosts World Cup night slalom events that draw international television audiences to a village most people had never heard of before Maier made it famous.

Quietly beautiful Pongau village on the Goldeggersee. Schloss Goldegg with its remarkable late-Gothic painted ceiling. Off the main tourist routes. Easy day trip or quiet base.

Großarl markets itself as the "Tal der Almen," the valley of alpine pastures, and the description is accurate: over 40 working mountain huts (Almen) on the valley's high slopes are accessible to walkers in summer, and several are converted into simple accommodation or restaurants.

Village in the Kleinarl valley. Ski Amadé area. Birthplace of ski legend Annemarie Moser-Proell.

Village at the base of the Hochkönig (2,941 m). Alpine scenery, ski area, historic salt mining.

In 1965, the Beatles filmed the ski sequences for Help! in Obertauern, and the village has traded on that fact ever since.

Radstadt is one of the very few towns in Austria where the medieval town walls stand complete, three round towers and the connecting curtain wall encircling the old town center that was granted market town rights in 1289.

Village in the Pongau. Near Schloss Goldegg.

District capital of the Pongau. Gateway to the Amadé ski region and the Liechtensteinklamm.

Joseph Mohr wrote the lyrics of Silent Night in 1816 when he was a young priest in Mariapfarr, and he died in Wagrain in 1848 essentially forgotten and penniless. The song he is most famous for had already traveled across the world by then, though neither he nor Gruber had received much recognition or money from it.

The Eisriesenwelt ice cave runs for 42 kilometers inside the Tennengebirge massif above Werfen, though only the first kilometer is accessible to visitors. That kilometer contains ice formations up to 20 meters high and chambers large enough to hold the Vienna State Opera with room to spare.

Werfenweng started banning cars from its village center in the 1990s, before "car-free resort" became a marketing category, and the electric mobility infrastructure it built since then, including electric taxis, e-bike fleets, and a shuttle system from Werfen station, is genuinely functional rather than decorative.