Since we'd seen so much of Innsbruck yesterday before checking into the hostel, we had to walk quite a ways to see our first sight. Heading towards the one place I wanted to visit, the Glockengiesserei, or Church Bell Museum and Factory, we passed by a few new sights, especially on Marie-Theresien Strasse. The Spitalkirche was decent and the Hard Rock Cafe was a must see too. Near the beginning of the long street that became Leopoldstrasse later, you can see the Marie-Theresien Statue and the Triumphpforte. The Marie-Theresien Statue makes a great photo with the Alps in the background. The Triumphpforte reminds me of the Arc de Triomph, as I'm sure its supposed to. As we neared the Church Bell Museum, we spotted the Bergisel Ski Jump/Panorama at the end of the street, waaay up ... read more

Well, today marks the end of our Romantic Road, or "Ende der romantischen Strasse" as the sign reads, portion of our vacation. We went to sleep last night, pleased that we were the only ones in our 6-bed dorm room, but were awaken sometime after 11pm by someone trying to open the door, that we'd locked from the inside. Apparently, a couple had either just checked in, that late, or left nothing in the room earlier and finally came back. We wanted to be up and at the ticket center for the castles by 7:30am, so we had to be very quiet, and imaginative getting ready to leave. We arrived with our car at the parking area near the ticket center just before 7:30, being only the second car to enter the lot. There were however ... read more

Another heavy breakfast and off we went, this time back to see the Harburg Castle or Schloss Harburg. We reached the south side of Harburg, remembering the north side road up was closed last time, and after a couple false starts, I found the Schloss Strasse road that took us to the castle. It was almost 10am, opening time, but we took some photos and by the time we reached the ticket office the 10am tour had already started. We paid our 3 Euros each to enter the castle grounds (the actual tour was hourly and cost another 4 Euros) and the WC to take care of business. This castle was much closer to my idea of a castle versus some others that have been more like a palace than a castle. It had several towers, ... read more

After yesterday's long day of traveling and sightseeing, we decided to take it easy today. After breakfast, we strolled down the main streets, Pflegstrasse and Riechstrasse looking for the tourist office we'd noticed last night. Along the way we passed the famous Kathe Kruse Puppen-Museum (Doll Museum) that we knew we wanted to visit, but figured we'd wait until after we visited the Tourist Information Office. This office, as usual, was in the Rathaus or City Hall. We found a decent map and flyer, then started following the numbers of interesting sights from there. The walking tour map started on Insel Ried or Isle of Ried, which we'd checked out last night. We passed through the Rieder Tor (Rieder Tower) and then walked around the tiny island, looking for anything interesting. It is a pretty island, ... read more

Today started like our previous days, we woke up around 7:30 or so, did our morning duties, went down for another decent breakfast in the hostel, climbed in our car and away we went. Today we planned on checking out Lauda-Konigshofen, about 40 kilometers away. I had found a map showing a walking tour of the town with about 20 or so sights, but hadn't printed it out, figuring it wouldn't be clear/big enough to read. We also figured we could pick one up at the town's tourist information center. Well, first of all, although I knew Lauda-Konigshofen was two towns more or less joined together, I didn't realize the two parts were that far apart, or that the only Tourist Information Center, in Lauda, we found we be so small with so few pamphlets. We ... read more