Innsbruck
September 24
Today was a travel day from Ljubliana to Innsbruck, and a welcome return to trains after slumming it on the National Express (Flixbus really). As predicted by the lady in the ticket office, our train from Zagreb was 40 minutes late. The first leg to Villach in Austria took us past Bled, with the castle visible in the distance. Then a change from a Slovenian train to an Austrian OBB train and another change at Schwarzach-St Veit. We got 15 minutes on the platform before the next leg to Woegl, and then a short 35 minute journey to Innsbruck. All these town names are like a load of Scrabble tiles shaken up in a bag and then radomly put together.
It was a long journey on the train, but the views of the mountains, valleys, lakes, viaducts and tunnels made it all worthwhile. Not as stunning as Switzerland, but very good.
At Innsbruck we used the instructions from the Booking.com host to find the correct bus to the flat. But we completely got the wrong bus and started heading out of town. We went to bus stop K instead of taking bus route K. A helpful lady sitting close by set us right, and we went back into the city centre and found the correct bus. Travellers often make these sort of errors, Michael Palin was forever getting the wrong bus but never admitted to it on camera.
The flat we have booked is all painted white, very functional and totally devoid of character. But it is comfortable and it’s easy to get into town. After orienting ourselves we walked down a steep hill and across the river (the Bruck over the Inn river) just as it started severely pissing down. The old town didn’t look its best, so we rapidly retreated to a proper tourist trap, the Stifskeller beer garden. Sadly there were no ladies in drndls and plaits delivering steins of foaming lager, but we weren’t in Munich.
After perusing the menu I decided on the usual Austrian choice, sausages. The option I chose was the Spicey Sausage, the Mel B of the sausage universe. I thought it would be like a curry wurst that they serve in Berlin. But I got three long skinny sausages and a small heap of what looked like coleslaw. So I took a good mouthful and Aaaagghhhh it was grated horseradish! That stuff is powerful, like having a mouthful of Colemans Mustard. I needed a few glugs of lager to quench my throat. I have had sausages three times on holiday now, and none has been as good as an English Banger. In future I will steer clear of them.
By the time we had finished eating it had stopped raining, and had a look around for a supermarket. I was pleased, nay overjoyed to find a Hofer. It is an Austrian Aldi, which is more or less the same but they have interesting offers coming up such as an air compressor and a huge log splitter. I can’t fit them in my bag and honestly I don’t have a use for them.
Julie loaded up the local bus app on her phone, and we caught the K bus back to our flat. Tomorrow it’s going to be sunny and everything will look a lot better.
25th September
Just 10 minutes by train from Innsbruck is Hall in Tyrol. The OBB trains in Austria are really good, clean and comfortable, and have the advantage of being much more modern. We had seen the town recommended by some YouTubers called “Home from Away” who travel around Germany and Austria. The old town is quite small, but it is perfect! It impressed me in the same way as Venice, because it is all wonderfully preserved medieval buildings.
The town was made wealthy initially by the making of salt, evaporated from brine. Austrians cure a lot of pork to make all those sausages and speck (ham), and that needs a lot of salt.
Then in the 16th century the town began making silver coins from silver mined at nearby Schwarz. This single town produced 85% of Europe’s silver at the time, and the poor miners had an average life expectancy of 35.
The buildings are built of stone and are rendered in white or earth colours. Doorways and window frames are left as bare stone, giving the buildings a very robust appearance.
In the main square we had coffee in the Rathaus cafe, and then walked around the 600 year old Rathaus (town hall) which is still being used for the original purpose.
Opposite the town hall is St.Nicholas church, which looks great from the outside and is genuinely stunning on the inside. It has big gothic windows flooding it with light, and almost every surface is decorated, and much of it is gilded. Salt brought a vast amount of money into the town.
Hall in Tyrol was originally called Hal from an old word for salt, as in halogens which are chemicals made from salt. Tyrol is an old county going back to the Hapsburg Imperial time, and is now divided between Italy and Austria. The town is full of narrow gasses (narrow streets) and very little traffic.
Close to the Inn river is the Hasegg Castle which houses the Mint Museum. It explains how silver coins were made in different ways from medieval times right up to the 19th century. Originally coins were stamped out by hand, but in the 16th century a water powered rolling press was invented for mass producing coins. The silver thaler (pronounced tarler) coins were of the highest quality, and were copied all over the world and became the standard unit of currency. The Spanish introduced them to South America using silver from Potosi mine, and they became known as dollars.
It is a really good museum, and there was hardly anyone other guests there. At the end of the tour we walked up the 45 metre tower which gave us wonderful views of Hall, the In valley and the mountains. The only “fly in the ointment” was the flies. They can get into the tower, fly upwards and get trapped inside the top floor where they crawl over the windows. They need to get some spiders of geckos in to sort them out.
When we got back to Innsbruck we visited the Tourist Information Office, quite possibly one of the best I have been in, housed in a vaulted 16th century guard house. We picked up a free leaflet and followed a walking trail around the old parts of the city. In Herzog Friedrich Strasse there is a building with a Golden Roof. Emperor Maximillian had it built as an alcove balcony in 1500 so see what was going on in the town centre, nosey bugger.
To ensure we had the full Innsbruck experience we sat in a cafe close by and I had apple strudel and beer, Julie had sachatort and coffee. It were grand.
The walking route took us past the cathedral of St James (very fancy), the Opera House, the Hofburg (Royal Palace) and the Jesuit Church (a bit plain). By the time we had finished we had complete saturation of historic buildings and got the K bus back to the flat. It’s been a long day of sight seeing, and wherever we were, we could see the wonderful mountains.
26th September
The premier attraction on Innsbruck is the Nordketten Bahnen, a cable car to the Top Of Innsbruck. The city sits in the valley of the river Inn, and mountains climb up steeply to the Nordketten mountains. The journey begins in a small park between the river and the Hofburg, the former royal palace which is at an altitude of 560 metres. Beneath a Zaha Hafid designed canopy, steps lead down to a platform where you alight onto a four carriage funicular railway. This travels underground for a while, then back into the light and across the river.
The cable drawn train climbs steeply up to mountain side village called Hungerburg at 860m, solid where we changed to a cable car to travel up to Seegrube at 1,905m , then change to another cable car to Hagelekar at 2256m, the Top of Innsbruck.
Needless to say, the views are astonishing, with Innsbruck a mile below and views of the Alps and glaciers on the distance. I am a complete wuss when I’m at height, so walking along narrow shingly paths where I could stumble and fall to my certain death was not on my agenda. So we stuck to good paths where no scrambling was involved.
At ground level, sparrows are hopping around cafes looking for crumbs, at the Top of Innsbruck it’s Alpine Choughs. One happy flew off with my apple core. These are yellow billed Choughs who love the mountains. Red Billed Choughs live on the cliffs of Cornwall and are quite rare.
Some hardy souls were hiking to the Top and others rode up on electric mountain bikes. Others took bikes up on the cable car and rode down. Some Dare Devils flew down beneath paragliders.
Once we returned to the Aldstadt (old town) we wandered around, but it’s only a few streets full of souvenir shops and cafes. Hall in Tyrol has much more to see than Innsbruck old town, and it’s considerably less crowded. But as a whole Innsbruck is a lovely city, with a cloudy blue river running through it and views of the mountains from the city centre. It is very cultural, although we didn’t have time to visit any museums or galleries. There are 30,000 students in the city, which is about a quarter of the population so it’s a lively young city.
I saw this sign at the top of the mountain showing peaks in the distance. Make of it what you will.
