Nassfeld Other Activities
Nassfeld-Hermagor region sees itself as a total all-round winter holiday destination not just for Alpine skiers and snowboarders. Nassfeld-Hermagor has the largest cross-country network in the province of Carinthia with more than 300 kilometres of beautifully groomed trails. There is a 4-kilometre toboggan run on Naggler Alm at Weissensee near Nassfeld. It has become customary for a toboggan ride to be accompanied by yodelling, as loud as possible, from the participants.The frozen Weissensee is the centre of many activities, including skating and ice golf. Skating lessons are available at certain times of the winter and ice golf is not really played directly on the ice, rather on a ‘carpet’ of snow that has been rolled flat. The technique takes some getting used to. Coloured balls are essential. The rough is where the snow has not been rolled and even coloured balls get lost easily here. An even smoother, more heavily rolled area acts as the ‘green’. Or rather the ‘white’.
Curling is very popular – an activity best practised with the aid of copious amounts of gluhwein and schnapps. Many of these activities are also on offer on the Preggersee, even closer to Nassfeld, as soon as it freezes over.
But it is the Weissensee that is famous for its Ice Skating marathon, held in February when more than 5,000 Dutch skaters travel there (2008 marks the 20th holding of the event) to see who can skate fastest over various distances. The highlight is the marathon itself covering 200 kilometres. The current record is 5hrs 11minutes.
Horse-drawn sleigh rides are popular, both over the ice and around the streets, and for winter walkers there are many cleared hiking paths. One of the most popular off-slope activities is taking advantage of the many hotel spas with a variety of treatments on offer from a haybath to a hot-stone massage.