Things to do in Lech: the quiet side of the Arlberg
Quiet, unhurried, and much of the best of it is free: a James Turrell Skyspace above Oberlech, fifty kilometres of groomed winter walking and a car free plateau to wander. For anyone not skiing, the Rufikopf cable car leads onto an easy high walk; after dark, take the floodlit toboggan run down from Oberlech or a horse drawn sleigh up the valley to Zug.
Lech keeps its voice down, and it does so on purpose. It is a village of low roofs with a river through the middle, building is kept tightly in check, and time off the skis here goes on walking, sledging and sitting somewhere warm rather than on attractions. It suits a gentle week: a few hours on the snow, a long lunch, and the afternoon given to something slower.
Start with the Skyspace, a James Turrell light installation set into the hillside above Oberlech, which is free to walk into. Go at sunset, when his light programme runs, and take a torch for the way back. Two of the groomed winter walks finish there, the blue local bus between the villages carries anybody holding a valid ski ticket for nothing, and Oberlech itself is car free from December to April, a pleasure to walk round.
For somebody not skiing, the Rufikopf cable car from the middle of Lech is the one to take. At the top, the SnowflakesPanoramaTrail is an easy loop at 2,350 metres you can walk alone, no guide needed. For company, the guided evening walk through the Zugertal takes nine at most, so book it early. On a grey afternoon when its doors are open, the Lechmuseum in the Huber-Hus asks only for a donation and has a photo lab children are welcome in.
Evenings here are a good dinner and a hotel bar rather than a party, and the best things to do after dark are slow ones. The toboggan run from Oberlech is floodlit and ends in the village with huts at the bottom, and the sleigh up the valley to the little church at Zug runs after dark too, once the houses are lit. When the group wants noise, St. Anton is on the same pass, but on foot it is a bus rather than a lift, so give it the whole day.
Free, and worth knowing
Seven with no charge of their own, led by a Turrell light installation above Oberlech, with a museum you enter by donation and fifty kilometres of groomed walking.
Skyspace-Lech, free to walk into
A walk in light installation by James Turrell, sunk into the hillside at Tannegg at 1,780 m above Oberlech, with a retractable dome open to the sky and room for thirty people inside. Entry during opening hours costs nothing and donations go into a slot under the screen in the entrance tunnel.
The light programme Turrell designed can only be seen at sunrise or sunset and runs about fifty minutes. At any other hour you watch the sky move through the aperture instead, and when heavy snow closes the dome a second programme plays across the ceiling. Winter opening runs from midday to eight in the evening, which puts sunset comfortably inside the hours, and a torch in a pocket makes the walk back down much easier.
Tannegg, above Oberlech. Bergbahn Oberlech to Burgplateau then 30 to 40 minutes on the winter walking trail towards Tannegg and Gaisbuhel; or the Schlosskopf chairlift then about 10 minutes on foot; or local bus 704 to the Schlossle stop in Oberlech then 10 to 15 minutes on foot; or 60 to 90 minutes on foot from Lech
The Lechmuseum at the Huber-Hus, admission by donation
A village museum inside a historic Walser house where you set the entry price yourself, which is as close to free as a museum gets. The current exhibition is about how the Arlberg has been photographed since photography began and how tourism changed what the pictures were for, and it runs right through our season. There is a photo lab inside where families and children are welcome, and a set of museum mouse characters and Tonie figures for the smallest ones.
Huber-Hus, Dorf 26, in the middle of Lech
Fifty kilometres of groomed winter walking
Groomed, signed and published route by route with distances, times, ascent and difficulty on each one. The character is different from St. Anton's: shorter, higher, more of it looping round the villages and less of it going up one long valley, and two of the routes finish at the Skyspace.
The friendliest is the Zuger Runde, 2.9 km and fifty minutes from the bus stop by the Kirchle at Zug, with sixty metres of climb and the tourist office's own recommendation for families. At the other end, Lech to Zurs is 5.3 km, an hour and three quarters, graded difficult, and climbs two hundred and seventy five metres through Ebra and along the Zursbach.
The blue local bus, free with a ski ticket
The bus that joins every district together, Lech, Oberlech, Zug, Stubenbach and Zurs, at short intervals through the day and tighter still at the morning and afternoon peaks. Line 703 between Lech and Zurs runs every ten minutes in peak season and line 704 goes up to Oberlech, last stop Schlossle. It is what makes staying in Zug or Zurs workable without a car, and anybody holding a valid ski ticket rides for nothing.
Oberlech, car free, on foot
A practical fact distinctive enough to be worth its own entry. The Burgplateau at Oberlech, 1,750 m, is car free from December through to April and can only be reached by the Bergbahn Oberlech. Every hotel up there is joined to the next by an underground tunnel system, so guests and their luggage move between buildings without going outside at all.
Cars stay below in the heated Anger car park under the Lechwelten, six hundred spaces and more, and luggage is taken off you in the underground arrivals hall at the cable car. Once you are up there, walking round a village with no roads, no cars and no traffic noise is free and is rather the point of it.
Bergbahn Oberlech from Lech
Der Weisse Ring, free to watch
The Arlberg's mass participation classic and a fixed date in the middle of January that works as well for somebody who is not skiing as for somebody who is. A twenty two kilometre circuit round Lech, Zurs, Zug and Oberlech with five and a half thousand metres of ascent and descent in it, watched from alongside the course and at the finish, with a race commentary running through the village all day.
Tanzcafe Arlberg, the Rufiplatz stage
The Lech half of the free spring music festival that St. Anton runs the other end of. The village stage is on the Rufiplatz, right in the middle of Lech and reachable on foot from anywhere in the village, and every concert on it is free with no booking of any kind. Admission from half past one in the afternoon, first come first served.
Rufiplatz, Lech
On the mountain
A floodlit toboggan run into the village, an easy high walk off the Rufikopf, and two slow ways into the valley at Zug, by sleigh or with a guide.
The Oberlech to Lech toboggan run
Shorter and gentler than St. Anton's and with far better hours. One and a bit kilometres through snow covered forest from Oberlech down into the middle of the village, dropping two hundred metres, prepared daily, floodlit, and open from nine in the morning until nine at night every day of the winter.
Under 20 euros · Bergbahn Oberlech from Lech, or walk up the winter hiking trail · Their page
The SnowflakesPanoramaTrail on the Rufikopf
A themed circular walk at 2,350 m starting right at the Rufikopf I top station, with interpretation stations along it about snow itself and about the Arlberg people who made a living out of it. Two point seven kilometres, an hour and a half, graded easy, and it is a genuinely high mountain walk that somebody without skis can do on their own without a guide.
20 to 50 euros · Rufikopfbahn 1 top station, from Rufiplatz in Lech · Their page
Horse drawn sleigh, Lech to the Zuger Kirchle
The set piece here. From the covered wooden bridge in Lech up the valley to the little church at Zug, either by day or after dark once the houses are lit, with blankets handed out at the start. Two point six kilometres and about fifty minutes, climbing seventy seven metres, and it is not limited by group size, so it works for a family and for a pair equally.
Price on request · The covered wooden bridge, Lech · Their page
Guided winter hikes and snowshoe tours with Arlberg Alpin
An evening guided walk twice a week through the Zugertal, which is the quiet valley and the good one. It is the only guided programme in Lech with a published price, a published meeting point and a published time, and the group is capped at nine, so it books out. The same outfit runs snowshoe tours of two to four hours alongside it for a range of fitness levels.
Over 50 euros · Ski school office, Filomena department store, Lech · Their page
In the village
Ten minutes up the road at Zurs, an open air rink where borrowing skates costs the same as bringing your own.
The natural ice rink at Zurs
An open air natural rink at Zurs, ten minutes up the road on line 703, and it is the only ice in the whole of Lech Zurs with a published price and published hours. Five euros for an adult and four for a child, and it is the same price whether you bring your own skates or borrow theirs, which is a good deal simpler than most rinks manage.
Under 20 euros · Zurs, on local bus line 703 from Lech · Their page
Nearby
The other half of the Arlberg, on the same lift pass, and for anyone on foot a bus ride rather than a lift.
St. Anton, St. Christoph and Stuben, and the bus that actually links them
The other half of the Arlberg is on the same lift pass, and the Sonnenabo covers every St. Anton and St. Christoph lift, so a pedestrian holding the weekly pass pays only the bus fare to get across. The reasons to make the trip without skis are the Gampen toboggan run above Nasserein, the free Wednesday night ski show in the village, the outdoor ice rink and the ski museum in the Villa Trier.
20 to 50 euros · Bus 760 from Lech Rufiplatz or Schlosskopf · Their page
These are our own picks, not paid placements. Prices and opening times change, so it is always worth checking before you set off.