Pertisau summer holidays

Holidays in Pertisau

A sunny little village, Pertisau sits on the shores of the incredible Achensee – the largest and deepest lake in the Austrian Tyrol. Bordered by mountains as well, this is a top spot for an active summer holiday. The village itself is lovely, too, and usually hosts live music events in the summer.

Highlights: • Lake and mountains on your doorstep • Over 450km of marked walking paths • Watersports galore

Pertisau Walking

With the Achensee lake and Karwendel and Rofan massifs, the walking around Pertisau is varied and beautiful. Hikers can climb to the peak of the Zwölferkopf from Pertisau in under 3 hours or take the mountain path to the top of the lake at Achenkirch in a similar amount of time (it gets steep at points so best avoided if you suffer from vertigo...). There’s usually a hiking program run by the tourist office during the summer months, which is free if you have an AchenseeCard.

Achensee has 19 really good Nordic walking routes – the Achenseelauf takes you all the way around the lake and the Panoramawegrund from Pertisau covers gravel, asphalt and forest paths.

The old Achensee road is a relatively flat stretch along 10km – being car free it’s perfect for a family amble. There are some cracking views of the lake if you walk up to the Dalfazalm at Maurach; it’s possible to come back down via the Buchauer waterfall. Finish the day with an evening stroll down the promenade; the sunset over the mountains is frankly spectacular.

Pertisau Cycling

Perched on the edge of aquamarine Lake Achensee with the Karwenden Mountains looming around it, it’s hard to imagine a more captivating cycling destination: 250km of bike trails around the Achensee give plenty of opportunity to cycle as much as you like. If you’re after a real challenge, sign up for the Achensee Bike Marathon – an event that sees around 1000 riders tough it out over a 166km course with almost 1500m of climbing.

Mountain bikers can ride into the Gerntal valley from Pertisau, for the forest track to Feilalm and up to the top of Feilkopf. Also accessible from the town is the trail into the Tristenautal valley, which leads into a forest path to Bärenbadalm where you have a steep 100m meadow climb to the top of the Zwölferkopf.

If you can’t miss out on the photo opportunity at Feilkopf’s summit cross but haven’t put in the gym hours for the climb, hire an E-Bike and let the batteries do the hard work for you (there are 18 places to hire and 11 charging stations around Achensee).