Innsbruck, Austria
On July 21st, we left Venice in the boiling heat around noon-time and boarded an extremely crappy Trenitalia train with busted air-conditioning and thought that today might be the day we die of heat exhaustion. If that weren't enough, when the train arrived at Brenner on the Italian-Austrian border, we had to get off the train and wait for buses that had been dispatched to drive us to Innsbruck since there were forest fires on the train tracks, and the train was unable to carry on.
All the frustration aside, in the end I think it was almost worth all the hassle. The 30Km drive from Brenner to Innsbruck ranks among the most absolutely stunning scenery Carly and I have ever seen. Sharp green mountains, deep valleys with green fields in a milion shades and beautiful Bavarian style houses throughout. Mind-bogglingly gorgeous.
After arriving at our accommodation around 8pm, we headed (of all places) to a Punjabi restaurant for some dinner where we piled back some butter chicken, chicken tikka, dhal, vegetable curry and other Indian goodness. After that it was back home to crash for the night.
On Sunday, pretty much everything is closed. I remember that from 7 years ago or so when I was in Germany with my Grandma, but it's still a pretty impressive thing, to see a town that's usually quite a bustling and busy place, turn into a ghost town overnight. We made our way to the station first thing and picked up train tickets to Füssen (our next destination, in Deutschland), and also found some free wireless access (at long last) to finally put up some long overdue blog entries. We had some awesome food for lunch, Carly had a tasty goulash and some salad, and I had myself a huge pile of Speckrahmspezeln (basically small home made noodle-dumpling thingers with cream sauce, bacon and onions). We had a great dinner as well, where Carly scored an excellent Weiner Schnitzel, and after dinner we stumbled across a movie theater that was screening Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in English. Not a bad way to end your evening.
Innsbruck is not exactly as I remember it being, but then again, I was only here for an hour, about 7 years ago, so I suppose that's not so surprising. There isn't much that I imagine you'd do here unless you were big into skiing or snowboarding, but the scenery and mountains surrounding the area are absolutely fantastic. If nothing else, it's a great place to relax for a couple days if you're heading through Austria. All of the food (and beer) that we had was particularly tasty, so that should be reason enough for a visit.
