Saturday, September 4, 2010

Innsbruck in the Alps

We left Zurich in a very nice non 1st class ticket and travelled for some distance beside Lake Zurich before ascending steeply into the Alps. Even though it was raining and cloudy, there were great sights on both sides of the train. Firstly Lake Zurich with the occasional spectacular water falls plunging down the sheer drop into the lake or green meadows running from the Alpine tree-line right to the Alpine hamlets. I was about to burst forth with "The hills are alive with the sound of MUSIC" but thought I might disturb a fellow passenger opposite who was engrossed in his computer, i-pod ear plugs in, oblivious to the beauty all around him.

We had to change from a Swiss train to an Austrian train on the border at a town called Feldkirch. A lovely Alpine town on the border of Lichtenstein, Austria and Switzerland. While waiting the 5 minutes on the platform though we started to appreciate the likely temperature ahead. It was less than 10 degrees for sure already.




Arriving in Innsbruck, I went for a walk around our hotel. To be honest, I was not impressed. It seemed drab, cold and run down and I started to feel a bit edgy. It seemed it hadn't moved on from the post war period. Not a restaurant to be found for dinner. It proved to me how wrong first impressions are sometimes.

The next day we walked into the old town. We got a bit side tracked on the way and ended up finding ourselves in a clothing store - we were amazed to find very high quality clothes at reasonable prices. Kathy found a beautiful dress coat that you could never buy at home (or at least in the stores we shop at). It was truly a work of art... Sorely tempted. Impressions of Austria were changing.



We continued on to the old town - wow! Oozing character and history it was breath taking with the backdrop of the snow clad Alps. Mozart even stayed here with his father! After a while the whole place livened up with annoying loud tour guides with Italian, Chinese, and German tourists in tow, locals with dogs, locals doing the "still life - statue" thing and the Austrian military band showed up. Awesome. Oompah pah and even some lederhosen to complete the atmosphere. The cloud was lifting to unveil even more of the stunning backdrop of the Alps with a fresh dusting of snow.

After free running for a while we thought it would be good to do a guided tour of the city by bus and found one immediately. There were two highlights for me - seeing the famous ski jump that is visible from the town and also getting an appreciation for the history of the town. It has been an important hub for trade through the Alps for many centuries and passed through many conflicts.

The ski jump was rebuilt for a recent Winter Olympics. I imagined the pants wetting adrenaline rush when preparing for a jump at the top. The view


would be stunning too, but probably not top of mind for the international skiers at that moment! Another thing ticked off my "bucket list"... I couldn't imagine standing on skis at the top of the near vertical drop preparing for lots of air time before landing at a zillion mph on a steep downhill.

We visited two churches and each one shared a similar remarkable feature - the number of gold features in addition to the ornate colored fantastic frescoes. These churches were almost over the top in their amazing adornment, which I imagine had been progressively added to over the centuries, particularly in the good times.

On Kathy's bucket list was a visit to the Swarowski Crystal shop in Innsbruck. This is a famous feature of the town and we spent some time just browsing some of the amazing crystal items, including jewelry and amazing ornaments in colored crystal. What was also surprising was that the prices were not excessive either. In fact, this was a major surprise in Austria and we found some lovely good quality clothes in particular. The people we interacted with were also lovely and a lot of them spoke English.



By the time evening came, we were too tired to venture far and so on both evenings we retired to the hotel bar, as there was no "in-house" restaurant. We noticed a large "mug stand" type of thing on the bar with pretzel like things the size of dinner plates hanging on it and I was not sure if they were wooden or plastic. Turns out that they were real and two glasses of red house wine (pretty good too) plus two dinner plate sized pretzels was dinner for us!

The next morning we set off for the station, suitcases in tow very early for our next leg to Venice from Innsbruck. As Kathy was feeling vulnerable to the unexpectedly cold weather we were experiencing in Innsbruck, we diverted to a shopping mall en route so she could buy some warmer clothes. My protestation that Italy would be much warmer seemed to be irrelevant to the present felt need. Meanwhile I spent some time in a coffee shop, hoping we would get just ONE good cup of coffee before we leave Innsbruck with the impression that they can't make a good cup there. Unfortunately my impressions were only reinforced.




We decided to use the toilet facilities in the mall versus the pay versions in the station. Wow, what a surprise. Very high tech like something you would expect in Korea or Japan. Firstly, virtually all vertical surfaces were mirrors and secondly, the sink units consisted of a flat white bench top with circular slots the size of large dinner plates into which the water from the taps with electronic sensors ran off. When it came time to leave it was like being in the house of mirrors at a fair ground and finding the exit was a test of visual perception.

The train from Innsbruck passes through the Alps via the Brenner Pass and afforded some stunning scenery for the first hour or more before we stopped at Brenner itself and were on Italian soil for the first time. The sight of the Italian flag flying on the Brenner Carabinieri Station was a lovely and welcome sight.

Location:Innsbruck, Ausria

2 comments:

  1. The obsession with toilet facilities continues I see, interesting. I am sure Kathy must have a name and a treatment plan for people like you.
    Having said that I did lol at your description.
    I have no idea how I come to be called Nana on this, but it is Nana Elaine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Nana, thanks for your comment. Back to normality now and normal toilets (thankfully). Not all on our travels were quite this, well..., nice.

    ReplyDelete