Natural high: Connect with your intuition in the Austrian Alps
Kendall Hill
Mar 18, 2019 — 12.15am
We must look like evangelicals in active wear: 200 yogis dutifully stretching their arms to the heavens as yoga instructor Karl Straub exhorts us to "go over the mountains and fly!"
So begins a long weekend of kundalini at St Anton am Arlberg in the Austrian Alps. The annual Mountain Yoga Festival embraces the village for four days in early autumn, attracting lithe types from Colombia to Canada toting complimentary shoulder bags emblazoned with "Offline is the new luxury".
This elite resort is best known for establishing the world's first ski school and pioneering the elegant turn known as the Arlberg technique, which revolutionised downhill skiing.
The spectacular setting for the Mountain Yoga Festival in St Anton am Arlberg. Supplied
In winter, it's a playground for the rich and reckless, who flock to Valluga, one of the highest skiable peak in the Alps, known too for its wild après-ski scene.
In summer, this fetching village of wood and stone chalets set amid soaring grassy peaks loses none of its charm – but much of its tourist trade.
Hence the yoga festival, one of several events created to attract off-season visitors. It's an opportunity to reconnect with nature at 1300 metres while cranking out poses on sun-drenched terraces.
In reality, it is a very, very wet weekend when I visit, so all our asanas are performed indoors and views are limited to a lone fir tree out the window. But yoga is a state of mind independent of the elements, so we yogis harden our chakras and power through.
Organiser Iris Höll welcomes us with the mantra, "Let intuition be your superpower" and encourages us to "use the energy coming from these mountains to strengthen your intuition".
Being in the presence of mountains has a tendency to prompt introspection. Or as Robert Macfarlane puts it in Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination, they "seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West". Yoga fulfils a similar yearning, perhaps, so the festival seems an apt fit for its surrounds.
There are numerous yoga classes and meditation sessions throughout the four-day festival. Supplied
Day two begins with meditation, held once more inside the St Anton Wellness Centre, an oversized gymnasium built for the 2001 World Alpine Ski Championships. I am not a morning person so when the instructor tells us to "say hello to yourselves", I squirm with annoyance. What is she talking about?
But meditation is all about restoring one's sense of Zen and after an hour's breathy blandishments, I feel quite chilled.
The mid-morning yoga session is held at the timber-walled, faux fur-strewn Gampen restaurant set even higher, at 1800 metres. Today, the place is shrouded in clouds and rain. Briton Marc Laws and Australian Amanda Noga are leading an "intuitive flow" class that begins with Marc sharing the story of how he and Amanda were in a sacred cave in Fiji when his intuition told him he should ask her to marry him. Amanda's intuition, in turn, said yes.
My intuition is telling me I'm far too cynical for this, so it's a relief to be able to escape that night to another of St Anton's summer drawcards.
St Anton is stunning in summer as well as winter. The festival has been devised to attract more tourists out of ski season. Supplied
Kulinarik & Kunst is the Arlberg region's annual festival of art and gastronomy. Its eclectic program features a hike to a mountain hut at 2400m for dumplings and cabbage, keg beer and a band, and a gondola ride to Valluga accompanied by star chefs and winemaker (and occasional actor) Gérard Depardieu.
There is meant to be a dazzling piano recital staged on a floating stage on Lake Verwall but the rain has put paid to that so we gather instead inside the flash new concert hall at St Christoph am Arlberg.
Star turn
The entire valley has turned out for an evening of uncommon entertainment, including a writhing acrobatic display of humans suspended from an LED diamond chandelier, and the star turn – identical twins Karolin and Friederike Stegmann performing four-handed compositions on twin Steinways.
Staged in a bunker art gallery lined with pop-art paintings of Naomi Campbell and Karl Lagerfeld, their passionate Rachmaninov and lyrical Liszt are so mesmerising that one man falls loudly to the floor in a faint.
The Kulinarik & Kunst arts and food festival is popular with villagers and tourists alike. MICHAEL WILFLING
It's a most unexpected segue: from meditation in the morning to a classical concert in the evening; from vegan gnocchi and energy balls at lunch, to prosecco and a whole suckling pig at dinner.
Just when I think the day couldn't possibly get any more diverse, we're ushered into a theatre where 14 members of the Berlin Symphony Ensemble launch into Queen's greatest hits. With his heavy makeup the lead singer looks more Johnny Hallyday than Freddie Mercury but he manages to rouse the crowd with his powerful voice.
From the opening bars of A Kind of Magic, audience members – including me – are out of their seats and dancing. It's not something my intuition expected at all.
The writer travelled to the Arlberg region courtesy of the Austrian National Tourist Office.
The village of St Anton is transformed into a ski resort in winter. Arlberg Tourism
St Anton's most exclusive address is the Hotel Tannenhof, a 16-bed alpine inn with seven suites ranging in size from 80 square metres to a 204 sqm penthouse. Complimentary minibars run to Bollinger and Bavarian beer. The hotel will reopen in late 2020, with rates from €1440 (about $2293) a night. For more, see hoteltannenhof.net/en
Ski Hotel Galzig is handy to the festival centre and gondolas, with rooms from $220 a night. For more, see Skihotelgalzig.at
The next Mountain Yoga Festival is from September 5-8. Four-day festival pass from €235 ($374) a person, excluding accommodation but including breakfast. For bookings, see mountainyogafestivalstanton.at