Hemingway and Fleming: Finding Inspiration in the Wintry Alps

For Hemingway, these two winters meant discovering his love for Alpine adventures. With his friend John Dos Passos and the ski instructor Walther Lent, he went on ski tours in the Silvretta mountain range and completed quite a few daredevil runs. At least that is what it says in his memoir “A Moveable Feast“.

Loneliness in the Silvretta. In Schruns, people can still tell you where and how Hemingway spent his time here. A favourite destination of his was the Bieler Höhe, which could be reached via the Madlenerhaus. Back then, it was a difficult endeavour - with leather shoes, simple bindings, wooden skis and seal skins. Today, a comfortable gondola ride takes visitors to the Madlenerhaus. The journey continues via Tunneltaxi, through a rustic tunnel to the Bieler Höhe, where the seemingly endless expanse and wintry-white magnificence of the Silvretta awaits.

Those who seek the stillness and solitude that attracted the legendary author still embark on ski tours there. There are also other picturesque, but less lofty, options such as the cross-country ski runs around the Madlenerhaus. 

Good old Hemingway was not only sporty but, as we know, a man who liked to live fully. Consequently, his stay in the Montafon also included more than one boisterous evening and card game with local hunters, farmers and barons. In Schruns he also completed his novel “Fiesta,” a book which would soon bring him worldwide fame. Equally impactful was his meeting with the Mannequin Pauline Pfeiffer. The fact that the millionaire’s daughter lived in the same hotel as himself and his wife Hadley did not keep him from starting a passionate affair: Only one year later, Pauline became Hemingway’s second wife.

Everything began in Kitzbühel. „They say that Ian Fleming was an excellent skier,“ says Michael „Gugu“ Tyszkiewicz, who closely studied the time the 007-inventor spent in Kitzbühel. Tyszkiewicz came across the story of Fleming’s Kitzbühel phase while working at the Hotel Tennerhof. In the 1920s, the building housed the Alfred-Adler-Privatschule, the very school that Fleming attended.

The school's principal was also an MI6 agent while his wife, who also taught at the school, wrote novels and short stories. It is said to be the influence of these teachers that sparked the creation of Fleming’s James Bond. Ian Fleming definitely never forgot his time in Kitzbühel.

Inspired by his research on Ian Fleming, Gugu Tyszkiewicz initiated an annual ski challenge as a homage to the Bond author: Fireball Kitz. The ski race, which is also open for children, is not just about speed. Vintage outfits and Bond-style gadgets are what makes this race special.