A Valley of Brettljausen

When you hear about a location called Sportgastein, you would be forgiven for thinking of it as an ugly ski village, artificially created to offer more winter sports options to the visitors of the nearby spa town of Bad Gastein. I did not expect much from it, honestly, anticipating seeing even more mountain slopes hopelessly ruined by roads and ski lifts, similar to Bad Gastein’s Stubnerkogel.

Getting out of the bus, however, I was positively surprised to see only one ski lift, non-operational in summer. Its lower station was indeed ugly, but the mountain itself was very green, had quite a lot of trees and no obviously visible skiing routes. The lift support towers were hardly noticeable, blending with the slope behind them, while around me were a beautiful valley with untouched nature, peaks still covered with some snow and high waterfalls in the distance. On both sides of the river that ran through the valley, cows were grazing happily, and there were huts everywhere – by the look of them, built a long time ago, when Sportgastein was still known as Naßfeld.

I counted seven huts in the valley (excluding Bockhartseehütte, which is situated next to a lake and requires 45 minutes of steep uphill hike), and I believe most of them serve Brettljausen. Thus, the Naßfelder Tal is something of a Brettljause nirvana. Of all the huts, Veitbauernalm is the furthest from the bus station, but is still easily reachable after an hour of leisurely walk. It is simple and extremely authentic, offering only a small choice of dishes, whose names are pyrographed onto a wooden “menu” (without prices).

Veitbauernalm’s Brettljause is very traditional, featuring thickly cut slices and almost no vegetables and served with no fork – only a sharp knife. That encourages careful cutting, slow eating and thorough chewing – an altogether pleasant activity because the quality of the meats and the cheese are outstanding, and the surroundings are breathtaking – at least if one is as lucky with the weather as I was. Bizarrely, all the time while eating I was observing white geese meandering behind the hut’s fence. They looked at me in a very distrusting manner, as if suspecting what I will do to their brothers come autumn.

Sportgastein is beautiful – if you stay in Gasteintal even for a couple of days, make sure you visit it. The only problem is that the valley is relatively small, and therefore the incentives for repeat visits are limited, unless you are determined to try every single Brettljause offered there.