Munich Airport to Obergurgl

You drop into the back seat at Terminal 1 or 2, and within minutes the airport is behind you and the road is pointing south, toward the head of the Ötztal where Obergurgl sits at 1,930m under some of the most reliable snow in the Alps. The run from Munich Airport to Obergurgl is about 240km and 3 hours door to door, from around €420 for a car - and because Obergurgl has no station of its own and sits at the very top of a long dead-end valley, this is the option that gets you there without hauling ski bags off a train and onto an hour-plus valley bus.

Munich Airport sits northeast of the city, so the drive starts by skirting Munich, then runs south on the A8 and A93 down to Kufstein, where it crosses into Austria and picks up the A12 Inntalautobahn west along the Inn. At Haiming the route leaves the motorway and turns south onto the B186 Ötztalstrasse, climbing the full length of the Ötztal - through Ötz, Umhausen and Längenfeld, past Sölden, and on up the final stretch to Obergurgl. This last 50km is a proper mountain-valley road rather than motorway, gaining height steadily until the road tops out at the twin villages of Obergurgl and, higher still, Hochgurgl.

Obergurgl-Hochgurgl - lately branded simply Gurgl - is the highest church village in Austria and calls itself the Diamond of the Alps, and the nickname is earned on snow. Sitting above 1,900m at the head of the valley, it holds one of the most dependable snow records anywhere and skis from November into early May, with a compact, ski-in ski-out layout and none of the loud valley-floor après that defines Sölden down the road. Hochgurgl, higher again at around 2,150m, links to Obergurgl by the Top Express gondola, and the Top Mountain Crosspoint on the Timmelsjoch road above it houses the highest motorcycle museum in Europe. It was near here that Auguste Piccard landed his record stratospheric balloon in 1931. If you are still weighing gateways, our guide to reaching Austria's best ski resorts from Munich Airport lays the Ötztal options side by side.

One practical note. This is a cross-border run, from Germany into Austria near Kufstein, but an easy one: both countries are in the Schengen Area, so there is no routine passport control, and both are in the EU customs union, so nothing is checked at the line - carry a passport or ID card in case of a spot-check and that is the extent of it. The A12 needs an Austrian motorway vignette, which most carriers fold into the fare, and the B186 up the Ötztal is a toll-free public road with no tunnel charge. In deep winter the valley road can slow behind snow clearing after fresh falls, and because Obergurgl lines the valley head rather than sealing off a car-free centre, your driver can usually take you right to the accommodation door.