To Innsbruck

November 27, 2014 by Amy Welborn

Today was Innsbruck day. My daughter was working, and she’s already been once, so it was good day for us to go.

We originally thought we’d take the bus. Daughter said it was cheap, faster than the train and there was free wi-fi. But when I finally got around to looking up tickets, the soonest we could leave was noon. It turned out that the train, while a little longer (about 80 minutes) was just a euro more expensive total, round trip for us.

So, after returning the rental car…

(what preceded returning said rental car? Well….getting car out of the overnight parking lot under a grocery store down the street, taking daughter to her workplace/residence, remembering…”OH! GAS!”…finding a gas station, figuring out the pump and what kind of gas, filling up, returning the car, walking back to the apartment, grabbing breakfast pastries….all by 9 am)

….we walked to the train station, bought tickets, found our train at the platform, and settled in.

So what to do in Innsbruck?

Yes, there are a few things to do – there are historic sites, nice churches, Olympics things (although the ski jump is closed for the season…not that we’d jump, but I guess you can go see it and maybe there’s a museum) and an Old Town section…the first thing on our docket was…

…the zoo.

I’d read about it last night, but not mentally committed to it until we pulled into Innsbruck. I’d not mentioned it to anyone, either, until someone finally asked, “Hey. What are we going to do in Innsbruck, anyway?”

So yes, there’s the difference between traveling with kids and without. I just felt, at that moment, for that afternoon, the leg-stretching and freedom afforded by a zoo visit was important.

It’s the Alpenzoo, and it’s fairly interesting, the population being composed only of Alpine animals. Plus, it’s built on the side of a mountain, lending not only authenticity, but…exercise.

The views were spectacular.

The structure to the left-center – the large cobra-like thing? The Olympic ski jump (1964 & 1976)

You can get there any number of ways. It’s not far from the city, so you can certainly walk it, especially in this part of the world where people out for an evening stroll do so with walking sticks in hand. You can take the bus, but you can also take the funicular – so we did.

The funicular station as seen from the zoo entrance.

The funicular descending.

(The funicular continues up to the top of this mountain, and we considered doing that, but by the time we finished at the zoo, it was 3pm, we’d already done the Zugspitze anyway, so…nah.)

(Not shown: a lynx up in a tree, wolves, a bear, beavers, bison, otters, various other mountain goat creatures and lots of birds, newts, salamanders and such. Marmosets were hibernating.)

For the rest of our time, we strolled around the Christkindl Markets – Innsbruck has several, spread through the Old Town. The boys ate schnitzel, I had a cup of guhlwein, we walked.

I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of imagery…the Blessed Virgin , a steak house and Geox…

Part of the town was decorated with these rather odd, sometimes creepy and crudely-made fairy and folk-tale reliefs. Along with light projections.

It’s a great atmosphere, although about 99% secular. I also learned that my expectations of finding unique hand-made items at a Christmas market were, at least in this case…way off.