Not that sliding down on snow with boards lashed to your feet is all that safe a thing to do on a mountain range, but it was once so dangerous just to walk through the high passes of Austria's Arlberg region that, in his first year of trying, a local man saved seven lives. That was in 1386, and the local hero was Heinrich Findelkind, a German-born swineherd who founded a shelter for distressed travelers – that is, a Hospiz (hospice). Others heard the call and thus began the Brotherhood of St. Christopher, an organization that, named for the patron saint of travelers, was dedicated to their protection.
The hospice is now an intimate luxury hotel, the Hospiz; the hamlet of St. Christoph that grew around it has blossomed in the intervening 600-plus years from a single shelter and chapel into a bustling town of 17 houses, a chapel and a ski lift. Nearly all the houses are now hotels and restaurants, and five of those are owned by the Werner family, whose affable patriarch, Adolf (“Adi”) Werner, and others restarted the Bruderschaft St. Christoph in 1961. Membership was opened to worthy men and women (the former called “brothers,” the latter, “sisters”) the world over, and the mandate was expanded to help those in need wherever need should arise.
St. Christoph shares one side of the Arlberg ski region with St. Anton. The other side of the region belongs to Lech, Oberlech and Zurs. One ski pass is good for all, but the only way to commute from one side to the other is by vehicle – unless you hire a guide, take a mini-gondola to the highest peak (about 9,190 feet) and ski off-piste on ungroomed slopes with the vertical drop of a fence post.
St. Anton has the famously challenging Kandahar run, which my wife, Julie, and I took late one afternoon, the slope in deep blue shadow, the snow blowing at ankle level so it looked as if we were water skiing on a river with a strong tide.
Each day, starting around 3, skiers would tramp into the lobby of the Hospiz, which stands in as St. Christoph's town hall, post office, church and entertainment capital. The skiers had drinks, checked on the kids, and then repaired to the spa, where a steam bath, two saunas and cold-water foot baths help relax the muscles and ease the mind.
Alpine spas are social clubs you attend nude. The hotter of the two saunas at our hotel would fill daily with chatty Viennese women and cheery men, and someone, male or female, would stand in front of the heating device and flick hot air onto each of us with a towel – a naked matador showing off some fancy cape work.
Next would come dinner in one of the hotel's dining rooms, or perhaps at the Hospiz-Alm, just up the road and also owned by the Werner family.
One of the reasons I love Austria is that I love Austrian food, every fat-gram-laced sausage and every sugar-and-fat-scented torte, but I've reached the point where I have to watch it. Each night, I challenged the chef to come up with something lean and fantastic, and each night he did. The experts have weighed in: good heart health is helped by a daily glass of red wine, so lucky for me that Werner has one of the greatest collections of Bordeaux wines in the world.
So passionate is Werner for the wines of the Bordeaux, he named the suites in the Hospiz Garni, the annex where we stayed, after the great Bordeaux chateaux. Our room was Cheval Blanc, down the hall was Latour, and you could also stay in Mouton Rothschild or Margaux.
The Arlberg is known for robust snow (we were once snowed in), but this time, conditions were perfect the entire week: a good base on the slopes, day-long sunshine and temperatures so mild, you were hard-pressed to get an outdoor table for lunch on mountain restaurants.
It was our memories of Lech with snow piling to the second-story window that made us understand why Heinrich Findelkind founded the brotherhood, so we made sure to attend its regular Thursday-night cocktail reception in the library of the Hospiz.
Brothers and sisters arrived from Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Long Island, and then three more arrived from Japan. One man brought his dog, and Mrs. Gerda Werner, Adi's wife, poured a local white wine for all. New brothers and sisters were initiated, and everyone wore his or her brotherhood pin on pain of a 10-euro fine, if Werner, in his role as the Brotherhood's resident master, caught someone without it. (The proceeds go to the brotherhood's good causes, of course.)
The next day, Julie and I skied into St. Anton and, taking advantage of an ingenious system of rope pulls and conveyor belts, hauled ourselves over to the start of the Rendl area, across the street. Rendl is one of those subsidiary areas you find in European resorts that Americans overlook but are nearly always worth visiting. The lines are short, runs may be a bit abbreviated, but they are rarely overpopulated and, for that reason alone, they stay well groomed for much of the day. Rendl had the further advantage of facing the bright afternoon sun that we were so lucky to receive each day of our visit.
Back from the slopes, I hit the massage table. My masseuse was pretty young Anita, from Vienna, who had a children's CD of classical-music warhorses played on a glockenspiel. While Anita worked my perennially bad right shoulder like baker's dough, I decided that it was karaoke night in the spa and started singing.
Upstairs, powerful forces were at work. A great book with thick, blank pages was procured. A sheet bearing the words of Heinrich Findelkind was reverently laid out. A broadsword that Sir Galahad himself could barely hold with assistance was taken from its glass display case.
My wife came into the massage room. “They want you upstairs.”
I was led into the chapel (rebuilt after a 20th-century fire) that had been constructed in 1386 by Heinrich Findelkind himself. A huge statue of St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus stood to the left. Werner stood before the altar.
Werner read the words of Heinrich Findelkind, words of sacrifice and of doing for others. I was reflecting what good things I could yet do in life when I looked up just as the flat end of the largest broadsword in Christendom impacted on my right shoulder – the one to which fair Anita had devoted so much sweet tenderness.
As I was recovering from that, Werner let fly once more and my left shoulder took the blow. “Congratulations, Brother Alan,” he said, and with whatever digits were still operational, I managed to grip the pen and sign the membership book as brother No. 15,457.
Then I got my brotherhood pin. I'm not sure who was more likely to collapse to the floor first: me from the initiation ceremony or my wife from laughing about it. But that night, my brothers and my sisters, each wearing their pins, approached to congratulate me on joining, and I came to realize that there was something distinctly Alpine and distinctly Austrian about it all: the camaraderie, the caring about others, the warmth and, just as important, the sense of fun.
Information: Austrian Tourist Office, P.O. Box 1142, New York, NY 10108-1142; (212) 944-6880; www.austria.info
Alan Behr is the author of the travel memoir “Once Around the Fountain.” He can be reached at his Web site, www.alanbehr.com.
