"A breath of snow or..." Altenberg by Bigs

In the first week of January 2007 I started with a group of rowers from our rowing club to a week in the ore mountains. We stayed in this little town called Altenberg, which is famous for its great cross country skiing routes and for the bob run. We also wanted to go cross country skiing this week.

When we arrived at the youth hostel in Altenberg there were hardly any snow :( We were disappointed, but looked up when it started snowing heavily int he early evening. We went into town and couldn´t see because of the heavy snow fall. We thought, well if it will keep on like this we can go skiing tomorrow.

A call to the ski rentalbrought us back to reality. They wouldn´t rent us ski. :( So we had to exercise otherwise. Fortunately we had brought some bikes and ergometers from Hannover with us. And running up and downhill through the forest was nice too.

At least we had one afternoon on ski. I really liked it and will definately try it again soon.

The Ore mountains are well known for its skiing possibilities and for the wooden crafts coming from here. You will find a lot of shops offering homemade wooden crafts. I really like the "Räuchermännchen", miniature wooden figures of a miner having an incense in his hollow body
so that smoke comes out from his mouth. Our family always had one.

Altenberg has some too and not to forget our beloved Konditorei Braun, a bakery with wonderful things for a coffee break...

• Pros:must be a great place for coss country skiing when there is snow
• Cons:not enough snow this year
• In a nutshell:If you are an outdoor type you find things to do...even without snow