Hotel Central Innsbruck

Again it was snowing when we woke up but again it wasn't sticking although it was still on the trees at the Alpine Zoo which we went to in the morning. This was Tara’s choice as usual. Greg's favourite was the brown bear which was lying with its head on its paws on a log, probably contemplating whether it was time to hibernate. My favourite was the lynx which was high up in a tree. By the ...

Woke up to Greg saying that it was snowing- what I thought was rain on the forecast had eventuated as snow- to Tara's disappointment, it wasn’t sticking so she couldn’t play in it. After breakfast in the hotel we walked across the bridge to the old city to what is the biggest attraction in Innsbruck, the Golden Roof and the Golden Roof Museum. This building was built by Frederick IV in 1420 as the residence of the Tyrolean sovereigns ...

Walked to the train station and did an expedition to the supermarket to spend our last Swiss Francs as we are back to Euros in Austria. Had a stopover in Zurich for a while and then caught the train to Innsbruck. Again this was a scenic trip over the mountains and it started snowing and was very deep as we got higher- just beautiful scenery. Innsbruck is surrounded by mountains, all of which had snow on them.<br><br>We checked into our hotel where we ...

... or so to climb up and walk around the balcony at the top, so it wasn't a big problem.<br><br>From the top of the tower you can see the town and the nearby surrounding mountains. The ski jump from the Olympics is easily visible, even on a wet, foggy morning like today.<br><br>We could see a cathedral from the tower so once we were back down on the ground we decided to go see it up close. Unfortunately along the way were numerous tourist shops all selling basically the same ...

... the trucks. Austria is so clean and tidy again it was as good as many paid sites, it was immaculate and we slept like babies.<br><br>We set off to Innsbruck fingers crossed, it was really wearing us out again and I half expected to be turned away time and time again, but the ultra efficient Austrians didn't fail us, the first garage we tried jacked her up, welded the crack and found another problem caused by the the blowing pipe ...

This was a lovely little place we stopped at on the bus tour to the castles. Unfortunately, being Sunday, most everything was shut (except for the souvenir shops that is). They have a woodcarving school there that I plan to stop at for a weeklong course on the next trip. But of course it was shut that ...

... plotted and declared him insane. After all, he was threatening to bankrupt the country...Nevertheless, he probably wasn't really insane. But, as these things go, he was "mysteriously" found dead in a lake soon after. Check out the few pictures we sneakily obtained from our tour. Today, we plan to see the Swarovski Crystal Museum, take a gondola to the top of one of Innsbruck's highest Alps, and possibly take a swim in a mountain lake. More soon!

... take us up the surrounding 'hills' (I use that term loosely), to meet Fritz and his wife who then took the lot of us in two horse-drawn carriages (pneumatic tyres for the journey over firstly sealed bitumen roads, then thru pine forest countryside) for a very pleasant ride thru an alpine village which featured a 600-year-old house! All of us were obliged to sample some home-brew schnapps, which left an impression, I can assure you...something like heated up metho, I imagined ...

Another work conference for my parents brought us to Oberammergau for a week. We stayed in the cutest little wooden cottage - like the whole thing ceiling to floor and including flowering window boxes was made out of wood! Totally picturesque like you've read about in Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Aromatic town bakery. Absolutely enchanting.