The train from Zurich to Innsbruck is a 3 hour and 40 minute journey and we spent over half of it talking to this old lady who, probably upon hearing us chat about our upcoming plans, felt like helping us out by giving us tips of where to stay, where to eat etc. Teesh, who has so far not had any problems talking with anyone who shows the slightest bit of interest in us, was strangely suspicious of the woman. I guess she was asking for a fair bit of detail from us like where we were staying, how long we were going to be there for etc. but I thought it was more to give her an idea of what advice to give us than as part of some underhanded scheme to commit some crime against us.

So, anyhow, now that we’ve started to travel about on trains – it brought to my mind the question of what is proper train etiquette. I’ve always wondered – is there ever a point in the journey where its too early to start a conversation with a fellow passenger? Take our conversation with this woman – she started talking to us about 20 minutes into our journey which left nearly another whole 3.5 hours where we didn’t know whether she expected us to keep chatting to her, or whether it was okay for Teesh and I to hold our own conversation? Plus Teesh’s oddly standoff-ish behaviour was sending me mixed signals about whether I should engage with the woman or not. Also, could I then effectively ignore the old woman and read my book?

Photos, Photos, Photos.

When?	Mid May 2009
Why Go?	The beauty of a small town
Weather	Fine but bring a jacket for the of the mountains!
Hint	– We didn’t exactly

The Experience

By the time we reached Innsbruck it was getting on nearly early evening. After settling into our hotel, Hotel Weisses Kreuz where Mozart stayed in 1769 which was conveniently located in the old town and only steps away from the action so to speak, we took a stroll around the centre of town. Its not that big to be honest and as it was after 5pm we were kind of hard pressed to find much going on or open in terms of things to see or do. So, we settled down in a bustling café for a few drinks and a bite to eat (wine for Teesh, milkshakes and toasted open cheese sandwiches for me – heh heh) and some people watching for the evening. I’ve come to learn that there is NOTHING that Teesh loves more than sitting in a café or bar and people watching with her wine and cigarettes. I think she’s loving the fact that in Europe you can still smoke pretty much everywhere – even at your table! Though Teesh does her best not to let the smoke come my way I always seem to choose the seat where the wind directly blows! Ha ha. I don’t mind it too much though I have noticed the start of a sore throat from being around her smoking constantly. Ah well. The joys of traveling with a smoker! I’m just not used to it I guess as I know absolutely no one who has the nasty habit. But to each their own.

We kind of hadn’t done much research on what we wanted to see in Innsbruck except that Teesh desperately wanted to visit the Alpine Zoo. We basically had about a day and a half to fill so we thought our best option was to pick up the Innsbruck Card. The 48 hour card was 30 euro (25 euro for 24 hours) and in that time we had full access to hop on hop off bus, to public transport, to a walking City Tour, to all the museums and sights in the region, a return trip on the Nordpark Cable Railway and free entrance to Swarovski Kristallwelten.

Before I go on I must mention just how gorgeous Innsbruck, well the old town, is. With the Alps looming over it the town is so beautiful. We mainly hung around the pedestrianised district in the old town and by the river. Its very much a winter town, known best for hosting the Winter Olympics twice, but I’m sure the mountains make it a very active place in the summer too. To maintain its beauty the town planners apparently ensure that any new builds are in harmony with the architectural style which is a mix of gothic, renaissance, and baroque.

Here are some of the highlights we saw:

Nordpark Cable Railway.

This journey actually consisted of three separate climbs starting with the Hungerburg cable funicular (Section I Hungerburgbahn.) The funicular departs from the funky “Goldenes Dachl” (Golden Roof) at Congress station which is only minutes from the heart of the old town. It only takes about 20 minutes to climb the 300 or so metres up to Hungerburg. Here you change for the Panorama cable car (Section II) which takes you up another 1,037m to Seegrube station. All of the sudden we were hit by how peaceful it was up here. While you wait for the final cable car to take you to the final stop you can step outside to gaze up at the mountain. We were lucky enough to witness some crazy skiers, with those really short half skis, coming down the mountain to join us. The drop looked quite sheer and we could see that half of them were really tumbling around. We were so into watching the skiers that we missed our cable car coming in so had to wait another 15 minutes for the next one.

Finally we were on to Section III which took us to the final station Hafelekar. At 2,256m we were very high up and it was fricken cold. We hadn’t exactly dressed for being on top of a mountain today. Fantastic view though and well worth my frozen nose and wind burn to get the pics. You can walk around at the top (just ignore the signs shouting ACHTUNG! At you) but it was very very windy and very very cold so we didn’t stay out for long. The funniest thing that happened was that I got talking to this Brazilian couple and when we got to Hafelekar we ran into another group of Brazilians! What are the chances! I also met a guy from Malaysia – he must have really felt the cold!

Alpine Zoo

Supposedly the Alpine Zoo is Europe’s highest elevated zoo so its supposed to specialise in high altitude animals. We saw loads of birds, amphibians and the like. The farm animals were cute. Big ticket animals included bison (who were absolutely massive), wolves, two sleeping brown bears, a beard vulture, and moose. Unfortunately we didn’t see any deer nor the lynx (to Teesh’s disappointment as she is a huge cat person.)

I was expecting more from the zoo but I guess it was okay for a couple of hours entertainment. Oh! We did see an eagle as well – and we got to see it in action catching and tearing apart a mouse!

Swarovski Kristallwelten

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Swarovski Crystal Worlds – all the brochures were suitably ambiguous and featuring this woman with loads of crystals and wacky make-up and a light blue lycra body suit. Well, the brochure looked more attractive than I’m probably making it sound. So I wondered was it going to be a factory, a gallery of crystals or what? Well, it was kind of like an art gallery with some very loose themes linking to crystals.

There are 14 rooms/features in total. There were some rooms which I really liked – such as the Crystal Dome (imitates what its like to be inside a crystal with 590 mirrors covering the walls and constantly changing light), the Crystal Theatre (fairy tale type scenes featuring crystals of course), the Ice Passage (a long hallway intriguingly lit and once you step on the floor you leave behind an impression), and Reflections (can’t really explain this room except to show the picture below!) One room which featured dummies and cut off robotic legs was just inexplicable.

It was actually kind of exciting but the hordes of tour groups which pass through are quite off-putting. We were lucky to be one of the first people into Crystal Worlds but eventually even we got swamped by impatient uninterested groups. We found that strangely the older Italian people were the aggressive. Teesh even got pushed over at one point.

The D-Cube was huge – to celebrate the life of Daniel Swarovski, the creator and founder of the Swarovski empire, his portrait was placed inside the largest crystal ever cut by Swarovski – 410mm square and weighing 225kg there was no way it was going to fit in my handbag. For shame.

The shop was nearly larger than the gallery itself. If you go you must make sure to also visit the toilets (high tech things sure had the old people confused about which door to enter and how to get the water to run and the paper out to dry your hands!) but also make sure to go outside – there was heaps of art to be found nestled into the grass and also a lookout point and a maze!

The Hofkirche (Court Church)

Although a lovely church in its own right the fascinating aspect of this church are the 28 large bronze statues which surround the cenotaph in the centre of the church. Although the cenotaph of Emperor Maximilian, an ornate black marble monument, lies in the middle to draw your attention you can’t help but be entranced by the life-like statues that look on. What makes the statues remarkable are the incredible detail in the build. You could probably study each and every statue for days and not notice all the details.

City Tower

Great for panoramic views.

The Rest

We also did the city walking tour which was quite an informative tour around the city. However it was a combo English/German tour so it was a bit disruptive and as always with those kinds of tour you never know if the other language is getting more information than you! We also ate some ice-cream in the lovely Hofgarten which apparently used to be a rough vegetable garden for the imperial court but was later developed into the English style garden it is today. Loved the yellow benches! Look out also for the naked Jesus in the middle of one of the bridges going over the river. Apparently when the sculpture was first put up some anti-porn groups were going to protest it. But its not the first time this group’s sensibilities were offended, prior to that it was a portrait of a naked Mozart which stirred them up …

Finally, I also ate some interesting things in Innsbruck not the least being my Foal Goulash with Bacon. Its not every day you can say you’ve eaten horse (although by that stage I really could have eaten a horse as I was sooo hungry! Ha ha) And before you ask no it doesn’t take like chicken – it was more like beef. For all I know it was actually beef!

Last Words

We only had probably just over a day and half in Innsbruck and we found that this really was probably just enough time to get around and see the main highlights. The main disappointment was that we didn’t get to go up to the Olympic ski jump because they had some gun shooting competition going on. Otherwise we had a lovely time and enjoyed what is a very picture postcard city.