Oct. 8, 2003

Touring Europe's ski museums

By Doug Pfeiffer

Next time you take a ski trip to Europe, add bragging rights to some great ski lore upon your return and consider the pleasurable addition of a visit to one of the shrines to our common skiing heritage. Sometimes there is an excellent ski or Alpine museum in the very resort where you are skiing. There¹s a fine one in St. Anton, and one in Kitzbühel. And, if you care to extend your trip to the romantic and historic city of Vienna, consider an hour's train ride to either Lilienfeld, where Zdarsky held sway and where reposes a marvelous tribute to his legacy, or, to Murzzuschlag, on the way to Graz, where a truly fine display of early skiing regalia reposes. And, time permitting, go on to Graz and see the amazing equestrianism of the Lippizzaner horses at the source.

Austria, of course, has other shrines to skiing heritage, and so does Switzerland. I know of several, such as one in Engelberg, but I'll only report on those I've visited to date. After all, I should want to leave some for future visits.

This past winter, with the North American Snowsports Journalist Association (NASJA), my photographer wife Virginia and I went to Switzerland, Italy, and France. This trip, by the way, organized by NASJA and SkiEurope, was beautifully choreographed down to the last detail. My goal, aside from enjoying superb skiing and companionship, was to visit locations with dedicated shrines to our sport, a sort of ski history buff's pilgrimage. I should point out that I am the former 15-year editor of Skiing Magazine, and currently the vice president of ISHA, the International Skiing History Association. We publish Skiing Heritage Journal, a quarterly, and our mission is to preserve and promote the heritage of skiing. Interested? Click on to www.skiinghistory.org for details.

Suffice it to say, the skiing in Zermatt, Switzerland, and Sestriere and Bardonecchia and Claviere in Italy was superb. But my focus here is on other pleasures, on museums of skiing. One day in Zermatt a wonderful snowstorm assured that visibility on the slopes, mostly above the tree line, would be best for avid mountain goats. So, we did the cultural thing and visited the charming Alpine Museum in this rather tightly confined village. While its principal focus is on mountain climbing and mountain guides, (you may recall that this is where the Brit Edward Whymper in 1865 was first to summit the Matterhorn but lost three climbing companions on the way down), it does include an important display of early, mostly home-built, skis and poles. An Alpine skiing legend in these parts is Otto Furrer. You¹ll find a photographic tribute to him here and to other regional heroes such as Rudi Rominger.

Next time you fly to Geneva and should wish to expand your knowledge of skiing's roots, consider some of the following options. This celebrated old city at the western end of Lac Leman, or, Lake Geneva if you prefer, is within a two or three hours' train ride or car rental drive to France's Flaine, Chamonix, Albertville, and Switzerland's Champéry, Gstaad, Verbier, Zermatt, and at least another dozen lesser known but equally grand ski destinations in either country. An hour's train ride takes one eastward along the north shore, through countless tidy vineyards and villages to Lausanne, site of the splendid world-class Olympic Museum. This handsome white marble-clad edifice, with its colonnaded, glass-fronted entrance, sits serenely in a five-acre garden park, wherein giant bronze sculptures of athletes in action surprise at every turn of its walking trails. Sited on a hillside above the lake, the setting is grand, the vistas across which reveal the snowcapped French Alps on the other side. It's a soothing setting, a visual medley of white, green grass and trees, and blue water. Inside, on two extensive floors linked by an open floating staircase, are dozens of displays germane to the worldwide Olympic Movement. And, they are changed from time to time. Skiing enjoys a fair share of the attention with space devoted to our sport's champions, and our gear. A special showing featured the use of modern material; epoxy, carbon and glass filaments, polyfibers for textiles, and other such exotica all melded into our high-tech gear, all in contrast to the real stuff of yesteryear; wood, wool, cotton, and leather.

In the lower sous-sol floor reposes an extensive reading room and a sports library of some 17,000 volumes, mostly about the Olympics. An excellent restaurant and gift shop add to the pleasures of a visit here. Everything is top-class, a bit ritzy, but a must-see entity, even if for but a few hours, presenting as it does a magnificent tribute to more than 100 years of Olympic and skiing heritage.

Albertville is an easy hour's drive to the south of Geneva. It was the host city for the 1992 Winter Games. Generously, the city fathers turned over to the community the solid two-story masonry building housing the old city hall. In turn, it created a fine tribute to Olympic skiing, enshrining not just its own local skiing heritage, but that of France. And it's only a two-minute drive off the main road to the fabled French resort of Val d'Isère, La Plagne, and Courchevel, among others. Remember the exploits of Emile Allais, James Couttet, Henri Oreiller, and of course Jean-Claude Killy? They are all presented here. One also finds a tribute to North American greats, Andrea Mead Lawrence and Nancy Green Raine. And of especially eye-catching appeal, how about dozens of mannequins dressed up in the fantastic Cirque-du-Soleil inspired costumes used in the opening and closing Olympic ceremonies?

If the skiing is not up to your expectations, consider a trip to a favorite ski shrine of ours, the Musee Dauphinois in Grenoble. It's an hour away to the south, and the collection of ski regalia assembled there puts it in the top two or three in the world. The museum is more than just about skiing, it focuses as well on the culture and lifestyles of those hardy mountain folk who populated the regions of the Haute Savoie in the high French Alps.

Should you be real aficionados of skiing history, such as Virginia and I, consider a trip to Briancon, another hour to the southeast of Grenoble. But don't go on a Sunday, when the quaint town is all but locked up tight. It's here where the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine Troops, were founded in 1888. This delightful, ancient, hillside walled city has a ski museum and a sort of ski hall of fame dedicated to those valiant troopers. Visit here, then ski the historic slope of Serre Chevalier and Montgenevre, and slip over the border to Sestriere and the marvelous vast slopes of what the Italians call the Via Latte, the Milky Way, so vast are the white snowfields around here.

Published courtesy ski-europe.com.