Innsbruck to St. Moritz

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This morning we were treated to sleeping in for an extra half hour, then, after breakfast, Sara took us on an hour long walk to the Old City of Innsbruck and saw and heard about: Hofburg, Empress Mary Theresa’s winter residence and Maximillian’s empty burial vault due to Innsbruck elite denying his request to be buried in Innsbruck and finally being buried outside Vienna.

After returning to our hotel, we loaded into the bus to meet with Fritz, a wonderful entrepreneur in the carriage rides, entertainment, and building home and barns for his horses. We met him in the town of Axams and got onto a 12 person modern carriage drawn by four horses and made our way from the center of town to the fields of corn being shucked, the animals, and open country space. Periodically he would get his round bugle out and belt out a brief tune, or greet people walking by all of whom laughed ( some of us thought he was saying—“Aren’t these visitors being taken for a ride”), and emptying his bag of horse manure over the side of the wagon. After entering another town and a short stop to see another church, we headed to his farm on the other side of town. We were treated to a drink (GG and I had our first beer because he didn’t have cola light) and some singing and asking 3 ladies form our group to join him in playing homemade instruments. We all had a great fun time and returned to our hotel and had some lunch before loading up for our trip to St. Moritz.

We didn’t get too far down the road before stopping to visit another church and take pictures of the ski lift that will be center stage for the 2012 Winter Olympics. On the way to Switzerland, we traversed the Inn river, the Entsau Valley, a stop at the Swiss Border, and lots of small villages and farms high up the hills of the mountains. We finally got to St. Moritz and after freshening up in our rooms we met in the bar for free drinks and then a nice dinner. We sat at the table of the Australian family of 4 and got to know all of them much better. One great thing is that we get to sleep in until 8 am or so. YIPEE!!

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Comments

[pete]

Carriage ride with Fritz the bugle player sounds like a wonderful time. Wish I was there with you guys.