Taxi from St. Anton to Innsbruck

A taxi from St. Anton am Arlberg to Innsbruck costs from €220 for one to three passengers and from €250 for four to eight, per vehicle and one way, at any hour. It is about 97 kilometres and roughly an hour: east down the Stanzertal past Pettneu and Flirsch to Landeck, then the S16 into the A12 and down the Inn valley through Imst and Telfs.

This price is for the city and the Hauptbahnhof. The airport is a separate fare — it has its own fixed price and its own page, St. Anton to Innsbruck Airport, because a flight has a check-in time and a city does not. The airport sits about four kilometres west of the centre, so the two are close on a map and different on a booking. Tell us which one you mean and you get the right one.

The Hauptbahnhof is behind most of these rides. It is where the trains east actually begin for anyone on the Arlberg: Salzburg, Vienna, the Brenner line south into Italy, the night trains. From St. Anton the valley services get you there too, and if you are one or two people with light bags at a civilised hour, that is the sensible way and we will say so.

What the car is for is the rest of it. A family with four sets of skis does not enjoy a change of platform. A group of six pays once instead of six times. A train at half past five in the morning is not something the Stanzertal timetable is generous about. And a fixed price that does not rise after dark is the difference between a late arrival being an inconvenience and being an expensive surprise.

For a day in the city rather than a connection, the old town with the Goldenes Dachl is a short walk from the station, and the Nordkette railway climbs out of the centre onto the mountain above it. In December the Christmas markets fill the old town and the roads in are slow for a few weekends — worth an extra half hour in the plan if you are going then.