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Published: September 1st 2018
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It's a drizzly day in Innsbruck with temps like spring at home but never mind, it's not too hot!
We set off to walk and see what eventuated. The hotel isn't far from the Old Town centre so we were soon into narrow alley ways, palaces, churches and old town houses with their intricate doors and frescoes. Also, there were the inevitable bus tour groups crowding this area! We figured they visited the Old Town, then the Swarovski factory and moved on, city by city throughout Europe.
Central Innsbruck is really lovely and is a must see even though we've been here before. It is set in the Inn valley between high mountains on both sides with a narrow plain in between. We walked through the town, out the old town gate and on towards the Ski Jump that dominates one side of the valley. Along the way we found a bell foundry with bells of every ilk from huge to small tinkly ones. We also passed the glockenspeil museum, the railway museum, the ice Olympic stadium and football stadium before tramping our way up the hill to the view out over the city. There we made an amazing
A battle scene from the Tyrolean War
Taken from the viewing platform with in Panorama discovery at the Kaiser Jager Museum by accident. We made an enquiry about the facility and found we could get a combined ticket to the Tyrol Panorama, the art gallery and the ski jump.
The Tyrol Panorama was incredible. We had an audio unit to describe what we were seeing and eventually arrived at a 360 degree viewing area showing the battle between the Bavarian's and Tyrolian's in 1809. The scene had been painted in a huge circle around and below the platform and on up in a curve towards the sky showing the battle scene all around and out over towards the Innsbruck City. It was a superb reproduction. Also included in the same building was a collection of rocks, fossils, mountaineering stuff, skiing stuff (like that word), insects, plants, pictures, etc, etc - stuff from the area..... Interesting though.
From there we caught a cable lift to the top of the Ski Jump. That is one very high jump!! We went right to the top where the jumpers leave from and lo and behold, a guy came out with his skis on and did the jump. Obviously they don't need snow to do the jump so
A ski jumper ready to go
This guy really did do the jump despite there being no snow there must be water running through artificial grass to land on. He must have been a professional paid to jump every hour or so. It is very fast, very high and very scary.
We had a long awaited for 'kaffe und kuchen' while up there then headed back down the hill, back through town and back to the hotel with sore feet from walking for 6 hours.
Finally, we had to sort out our biking route and details. Our English booklet did not match the German map and guide. The map numbers didn't equate so we had to go through day by day and sort out what maps belong to which text. We think we have it sorted but time will tell. At 7pm our R&R man turned up with our bikes, saddle bags, repair kit and a few details so we're set to go in the morning.
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