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February 8th 2010

Published: February 8th 2010

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We took the train from Garmisch to Innsbruck for the day. We bought the Innsbruck card, which covered all the transportation, and touristy things we did that day, so it turned out to be a really good deal!

First we took a walking tour of the “old town” (it’s all old, but this part was really old). This included brief history of the buildings, architecture, and the cathedral. We were able to see the Golden Arch, which is where the king sat to watch jousting tournaments, town meetings, and everything in between. Our tour guide told us that king Maxamillian said that it needs to be gold, because if you want to be remembered when you turn the page; you need to make sure that it lasts.

We also went into the main cathedral. It was beautiful. I believe this one was of the baroque period. The ceiling was also an optical illusion. It looked like the ceiling was curved, but it was flat, and ornately painted. There was also a lot of gold used for the altars. One thing I noticed about every cathedral we went in was that they are extremely cold. You’re better off holding mass

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Golden Arch

outside to avoid frostbite.

Next we went into king Maxamillian’s tomb. This was really creepy, and honestly gave me goose bumps. He wasn’t actually in the tomb, but outside of the tomb were bronze statues of people guarding him. This was the creepy part. It was kind of like in the Scooby Doo cartoons where the eyes of the people in paintings followed you. No matter where I stood, their eyes followed me. So we booked it out of there, to get some pizza.

In Germany and Austria, they don’t skimp on the portion sizes. I went from always being hungry in Spain, to being constantly full. We went to grab a slice of pizza close to where the Golden Arch was. At one point the pizza place was a very important building, but now you can get really good pizza there. Back to the portion sizes… if you take a normal large size pizza, and cut it in half, that’s how big my one slice of pizza was. I would normally say it was as big as my head, but in this case it was bigger.

Our next stop after grabbing pizza was to go to

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Beautiful architecture

every girls dream place… Swarovski Kristallwelten!!!! (Crystal world). Neither of us new what to expect here. I had seen it on the travel channel a while ago, and didn’t remember much. The outside of the building is quite the experience in itself. It is built into the ground, and in the shape of a face. The mouth is a waterfall that fell into a little pond. But it was frozen now. We walked in to find out that it is an art museum. There were different exhibits featuring different artists, and all of the artwork incorporated Swarovski crystals. It was incredible. Some of the exhibits were kind of trippy, and others were breath taking. It’s difficult to describe, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
At the very end of the museum is information about Mr. Swarovski, and of course the gift shop. I managed to control myself and not get anything, but I did pick out my engagement ring ☺

After that we hopped back on the train to Garmisch for the night. The next stop is Salzburg, Austria.

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