Central Europe Adventures 2016 – Part Two: Innsbruck

Arriving in Innsbruck after almost 40 hours of travel, one would expect to fall straight into bed, but as it was such a beautiful afternoon I decided it go up to the top of Nordkette instead.

To get to the top of Nordkette you catch a very modern Funicular from the edge of the Innsbruck city centre to the suburb/village of Hungerburg. From here you switch to two cable cars which take you to the top of the mountain. At the top I walked around for at least 30 minutes in snow that was literally knee deep. The ski runs off the top were the steepest I’ve ever seen. After deciding against trying to get to the absolute summit of the mountain in the deep snow I headed back down one cable car to grab a traditional Austrian lunch – Apple Strudel and Red Bull.

Once I got back down the mountain I went for a walk around the Innsbruck old town trying to find food for dinner, where I found a great soup at my Indigo am Rathaus and after being awake for nearly 48 hours I went to bed at 7pm.

After sleeping for 12 hours straight I crawled out of bed. After a very slow start to the morning I woke myself up with a hot chocolate and decided to catch the tram from the city to the village of Igls. All I knew about this tram is that its number is 6 and it was meant to go through a pretty forest. I walked around the town about three times trying to find the tram until I eventually gave in and found WIFI to help me out. As it turns out you must catch tram 1 to its terminus and tram 6 begins literally 10m away. Luckily for me as I stepped off tram 1 tram 6 was waiting and ready to depart.

As the tram started to climb out of Innsbruck and up towards Igls it started to rain which turned into light snow as we kept getting higher. Arriving at Igls I walked around the village as the snow started to get heavy. I then found the cable car that headed to the Patscherkofel ski area however I decided not to go up the mountain any further as the weather was rapidly packing in. Instead I got lunch at the restaurant at the base station.

As I ate lunch the snowfall continued to get heavier. When I went outside again it was coming down in big heavy clumps. Rather than staying dry and warm inside I decided this was a great time to go for a walk in the falling snow and got a little lost walking through a park until I found my way back to the tram for the trip back to Innsbruck.

When I got on the tram the driver suggested to me that I could take photos through his cab of the track in front as the snow was falling. This was a great opportunity and I had a great chat to the driver as the tram headed back down through the forest in the snow.

Once I was back in Innsbruck I checked out the Golden Roof Museum and had soup for dinner again.