A Day In Innsbruck

We enjoyed a bit of a lie-in this morning, with no rush to get on the bikes. Having two nights in one place feels like a luxury after a week of packing every morning. We ended up sitting with Jane and Rutherford for breakfast and making plans to have dinner together before we went our separate ways tomorrow.

Luke and I didn’t have set plans so we walked towards the old town along the river and our first stop was a charity shop that was selling a wide range of items including second hand dirndls, which I’ve not seen anywhere else before.

The quality of the clothing was excellent and Luke ended up buying a jacket* and I was slightly annoyed to find an entire display of just the thing I had looked for in London:

Champagne glasses! Lea likes to drink her sparkling wine out of a nice glass and our Camden flat only had three (not very nice) wine glasses and not one flute, so every time I passed an op shop I looked for a cheap one, to no avail. Apparently they were all in Innsbruck.

Then we walked around the streets and quickly found the main** attraction, the golden roof. Don’t ask me why it’s so famous, it’s so boring I couldn’t be bothered even looking up why it’s so well known.

Here’s a slightly closer photo using a technique I saw on instagram and was able to use thanks to the first real rain of my trip causing some puddles to form. Now I get a photo with TWO golden roofs. What could be more thrilling than that?

We walked around the main mall and back streets of the old town, which were charming.

The buildings were lovely colours and some were very ornate.

Traditional painting of the wine making process.
A shop devoted to ham.
A very cute ice cream store.

The old part of town was only about six streets but they had a lot of interesting shops. One sold the most elaborate glasses I’ve ever seen.
This is not a great photo but you get a bit of an idea.

We stopped at a cafe with large umbrellas to have a drink as the rain started, and watch all the very fashionably dresses people go by. Not quite as fancy as Zürich but lots of interesting styles.

The rain and sun alternated every half hour.

More walking through the side streets and looking in some of the shops.

*this is the jacket he bought

We moved to the riverside and had some lunch – nachos with bbq sauce and some garnish that I think is tiny tomatoes but I’m really not sure!

They weren’t at all spicy… but if anyone knows for sure please tell me!

After another hot chocolate (they really are very fluffy and delicious!) we headed back to the hotel for an undeserved rest.

More puddle reflections!

On the way home we walked through a local market hall that had local vendors with stalls. We bought a bag of fried apple for the train trip tomorrow.

More marvellous looking strawberries.

White asparagus is a big thing here at the moment.

During our walk around town we had found a place for dinner, the Stiftskeller Inn. It had a very ‘Munich beer hall’ atmosphere and seemed to be quite popular.

Luke and I got there a bit early to secure a table then Jane and Rutherford arrived not long after. We had a lovely evening swapping travel stories and eating some very traditional Austrian food.

Luke had beef goulash.
I had an enormous salad covered in bacon.
Luke had Apple strudel and custard for dessert and I had icecream.

We all walked back to the hotel together and said our farewells, they are off on another section of cycling, this time to Vienna.

Tomorrow we catch the train to Hallstatt, which hopefully lives up to its postcard-perfect reputation!

2 thoughts on “A Day In Innsbruck

  1. It’s not even an entire roof that’s golden (unless it’s actually a small building in front of the larger one?)

    The glasses look like something Dane Edna Everage would have worn.

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