Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis

Serfaus, Fiss and Ladis sit on a sunny terrace above the upper Inn valley and share one ski and walking area, marketed heavily at families. The oddity is the Dorfbahn Serfaus: to keep cars out of the village, Serfaus built an underground railway in 1985 running about one and a half kilometres on four stations from the car park at the edge to the cable car station - and it runs on an air cushion rather than wheels, hovering on a film of compressed air, which makes it one of very few such systems anywhere and by a wide margin the smallest underground railway in the world by population served, since Serfaus has around a thousand inhabitants. The plateau has an unusually high sunshine record and the area is one of the better regarded family resorts in Austria.

What you actually see

• An air-cushion underground railway - hovering, not on wheels, in a village of a thousand.
• Three villages, one area - Serfaus, Fiss and Ladis sharing lifts and trails.
• A car-free village centre - the reason the underground line was built.
• A high sun terrace - the plateau's unusual sunshine record above the Inn.

When to go

December to April for skiing; June to September for walking. Two days.

Honest expectations

It is a family resort and priced as one, with the school holidays crowded and expensive. The underground line is a two-minute curiosity, not an attraction in itself. The access road is steep.

Nearby

Landeck is below; the Kaunertal and the Silvretta road are close.