Maria Alm Chalet Featured in Country Life International

Alpine Property Finders was recently featured in Country Life International, one of the world’s most prestigious property magazines. The article highlights our stunning five-bedroom Maria Alm chalet - a rare zweitwohnsitz (second-home status) property available to non-EU buyers.

   29 October 2025

‘Now that it’s all 60 years ago, I can reveal: I still don’t really understand the script’

Sport Gefäll’s new owner Peter Kernstock (previously head chef of the Marietta Hotel) remembers that the piano was completely ruined—probably due to the cold and snow, combined with the fact that Mr Harrison and Mr Lennon stood right inside the piano during shooting.
‘When the film crew checked out of the Marietta,’ Herr Kernstock explains, ‘they were charged with the cost of replacing the piano. Their leader said: “Okay, but then deduct it from what we’ll charge you for having the biggest group in the world play a concert in your bar!”’

During my summertime visit to Obertauern, I saw neither skis nor snow—although I’d only missed the last flurry by weeks, according to locals. Instead, I hiked around the Hundsfeld Moor (moorland) where the Beatles filmed the scenes on snow bikes. Filled with the healthy aroma of Zirbe (Pinus cembra), it’s believed to be one of only two places in Europe (the other being in Sweden) where a small, rare bird called the red-spotted bluethroat (Luscinia svecica) nests, making Obertauern popular with bird enthusiasts, as well as Beatles fans.

Over an excellent Wiener Schnitzel in the town’s five-star Seekarhaus Hotel, where two menus signed by the Beatles are displayed proudly on the wall, I rewatched the Obertauern section of Help! on my phone (with sound off, naturally, out of respect for other diners).
It’s not as if hearing the dialogue would help it make any more sense, anyway. Even some members of the cast are still flummoxed by the film. As Herr Lizarr writes in his memoirs (Die Beatles und Ich) about the time when a small, but beautiful ski resort in the Austrian Alps became, for one week, the epicentre of the Swinging Sixties: “Now that it’s all 60 years ago, I think I can reveal: I still don’t really understand the script.”

Where to buy

Maria Alm, Austria, €2.98 million (about £2.6m)
A rare zweitwohnsitz (second-home) chalet available to non-EU buyers.
This ski-in, ski-out five-bedroom property in the Hintermoos region enjoys views of the Hochkönig massif.
Alpine Property Finders (00 35 321 245 5427; www.alpinepropertyfinders.com)

Aurach bei Kitzbühel, Austria, €19.8 million (about £17.2m)
This five-bedroom, six-bathroom chalet enjoys mountain views and easy access to the nearby ski slopes of Hahnenkamm and Jochberg. It also benefits from a pool, sauna and the 18-hole Eichenheim golf course nearby.
Engel & Völkers Kitzbühel (00 43 53 567 1615; www.engelvoelkers.com)

242 | Country Life | October 22, 2025

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