WK 8 – Innsbruck: Rain, Rain Go Away!

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From Vienna we travelled to Innsbruck where we planned to spend 6 days sightseeing, hiking and generally enjoying the great outdoors! Alas, it was not to be as, apart from a few sunny spells in the first few days, we were subjected to almost constant rain. Believe me - there are few things worse than camping in the rain. Everything is damp all the time and even though the tent put up a good fight a storm on the Sunday breached it’s defences for the first time and meant that I had to sleep curled around a puddle on my airbed.

The first 3 days were highly productive though as we had received an Innsbruck Card as part of a special offer at the campsite which entitled us to free travel on all city transport as well as free entry to all tourist attractions in the area. The first stop had to be Swarovski Crystal World which was absolutely fabulous. To celebrate their 100th Anniversary Swarovski decided to build a tourist attraction with a difference - instead of an interpretative centre detailing the crystal manufacturing process they built an underground chamber with 12 rooms holding art installations based around or including crystals. From the entrance (see big giant head photo) to the exit (Swarovski Crystal Shop where Col nearly bought me a beautiful bracelet) we were delighted - there was a mechanical theatre of dancing mannequins and flying shirts, crystal jellyfish and all kinds of magic and wonder in between that captured the imagination of young and old alike. How many art galleries can say that they have had children of 8 - 10 years old running around looking enthralled and amazed in turn? It really was one of the best “tourist attractions” I’ve seen and I would recommend it to anyone who visits Innsbruck.

We followed that with a trip on Innsbruck’s iconic funicular - which for a couple of funicular enthusiasts like ourselves was another highlight of our trip to Innsbruck (and one of the main reasons we ended up there). It was brilliant and from the top we had a wonderful view of the mountains surrounding the town and the wonderful blue sky that would sadly be absent for the rest of the week. There was even snow at the top of the cable car that we took after the funicular which was very exciting given that we will hopefully not be seeing any of that until we return to Leeds in February.

The following day was no less exciting and started with a trip to the Alpine Zoo to visit the residents of the European Mountains. Now, call me stupid but I had no idea about the prevalence of wild bears, boars and bison in the area and to be honest it made me glad to live in Leeds where the biggest concern is arrogant squirrels. The only downside of the Zoo was that it was actually on the side of a mountain (it main claim to fame is that it is the highest altitude zoo in the world) and to see all the animals and birds we actually had to climb half the mountain (once again in the rain), but still there’s no such thing as bad exercise is there?

We followed the Zoo with a trip to the Bergasil Ski Jump which is again on the side of a mountain overlooking Innsbruck. All I can say is Eddie the Eagle was a very, very brave man because this ski jump was unbelievable scary. We got to stand at the top looking down and I can guarantee you that there are very few people in the world who would be capable of throwing themselves down something that high with only a couple of pieces of wood strapped to their feet for safety. Absolutely mad!

To cap off a very busy day we headed to Schloss Ambross - a beautiful castle complete with collections of armour, peculiarities and curiosities from around the world as well as (randomly) a Dracula exhibition. One of my favourite bits was “The Drinking Book” - apparently to be able to sign this prestigious book guests had to down a glass of wine in one go - needless to say some of the writing was pretty illegible (although that may have more to do with the fact that the book is now 450 years old). Sound like my kind of people!

The rest of the week was spent hiding from the rain and trying not to get too wet. We had planned to do a hike through the mountains but there was not enough visibility to do this and to be honest walking in the rain is only fun when you know you can get home, have a hot shower and stay dry for the rest of the night. We had tepid showers and a leaky tent and were guaranteed to get wet every time we needed the loo or fancied a cup of tea. There were 2 saving graces - the campsite had a covered terrace area so we had somewhere to cook and sit and drink tea (wearing all our clothes to try and keep warm) and we had Col’s Zen complete with “Chuck”, a US comedy series that we rationed out so it lasted us throughout the week. Apart from that it was the most depressing week we’ve had so far and we were desperate to travel south again in search of sun!

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