Camping Hebalm

Where there’s alps, there’s lakes... and there's loads of choice round here. A 20-minute drive from base, the banana-shaped Packer Stausee is your spot for swimming, sunbathing and boat trips, while an hour and 15 minutes away the lakeside town of Velden-am-Wörthersee sometimes invites comparison with Saint-Tropez: no movie stars and yachts, but watersports aplenty in a surprisingly Med-like climate. For active stuff high up, take cable cars up to the ski resort of Klippitzorl (40 minutes) and bomb down on grass sledges, descend on bike trails of varying peril or just take a hike; there’s a via ferrata route at the top for those who like a scramble. For more extreme alpine terrain, it’s an hour to Petzen: put mountain bikes on the cable car and sail up to the savage peaks of the Karawanken, where biking and hiking trails take you down to the valley floor. From the heights to the depths, an hour away over the border in Slovenia, the former mines of Mežica offer subterranean surprises, like a train ride through a mountainside, a kayak trip down a buried river. Continuing the theme, while looking onto a pleasant city with a extremely modern modern art museum, the Schlossberg in Graz, also an hour away, presents a hilltop fort to the world, and underneath it an alternative town of tunnels used for shelter during the war. Take a cable car or hike to the top, take a train deep down into the mountain... very James Bond.