Time to catch our breath!

---

As you can see from the title, we are back in Austria again. Left Germany (Munich) this morning and caught the fast train down to Innsbruck.
We had a bit of a hiccup in our travel plans last night when we tried to book a place to stay in Lucerne, Switzerland.
We were up til late on the net and ringing around but couldnt find any vacancies there. So, we decided to backtrack a bit down here to Innsbruck.

Glad we did, the railway down from Munich was absolutely fantastic. We thought we had seen it all on our trip from Salzburg to Zell-am-See, but today surpassed that.

Today the "Wow" factor set in well and truly, oohs and aahs as we moved from one side of the carriage to the other.
(Might add here that we have been extremely lucky in all our rail travels - the 1st class cars are very comfortable, usually glass-enclosed private compartments with few other passengers. Most trips we've had a compartment to ourselves with room to spread our luggage and stretch out. The trains are quiet and smooth with large glass panoramic windows - excellent for taking pics. Speaking of which, just as you take one stunning photo, another better one looms in sight. Thank goodness for digital cams so you can just delete all the unwanted shots).

The scenes outside this morning (another sunny clear blue sky day) were stunning - words and photos cannot convey what the eye sees. At one stage we emerged from a tunnel to find a sheer drop on one side and sheer cliff face on the other side - we'd literally popped out of a mountainside hundreds of feet (thousands?) above tiny towns far below us. At the moment we are at seriously high altitude, the rail line cut through mountain passes with snow-covered peaks on all sides and lush green valleys clustered with charming little towns and farms at the foot of the mountains.

It is hard to take good photos out the window because the trains are so fast you no sooner point the camera than you're into a tunnel or a pine forest.

We won't post any Innsbruck pics yet - have decided to stay an extra night here and catch up with mundane things like washing & sleeping. We're booked into a comfortable Pension not far from the city centre with the river See(?) running right below our window and towering mountains visible even when lying in bed!

The only really difficult part of this trip so far has been coping with the SMOKING. Seems like 98% of Europeans chain-smoke, in restaurants, walking round the streets, waiting for trams etc - the only relief we get is travelling inside non-smoking carriages. Internet cafes and laundromats (where we are tonite) are particularly bad. Lovely having a nice meal in a reasonable restaurant then having smokers light up on all sides of you blowing fumes over your food! We cannot imagine what the health implications are going to be over the next few years - either we've been conned with anti-smoking health campaigns in Australia & USA or the tobacco companies have hugely conned all the European governments. (Here endeth the sermon for today from St Mary).

Apart from that we've had a leisurely look around the lovely old mediaeval town, a very tasty lunch sitting out under umbrellas in the town square, people-watching and generally marvelling at the mountains all around us.
Plan to get an early night (at last) then look around tomorrow before adding some more pics to this blog and maybe moving on to Switzerland on Saturday.

(By the way in case any of you haven't found out, you can enlarge the pics by clicking on them)

Leaving now to try and get some mountain air MINUS nicotine+++

Love to all A&M

---

Photos

Farm from train
approaching Innsbruck

Our B & B
Where we are staying in Innsbruck

A mime / statue
This girl stood perfectly still for ages before we realized she was alive! It was a warm day too! We thought it was a statue when we first arrived at the square.

Window boxes
are everywhere

Grafiti....medieval style
Walls all around these old towns are covered in stuf like this...

Smoke free Supermarket
Lovely supermart lower level Innsbruck railway station (10 mins walk from our B&B) has a very nice NO SMOKING cafe. A lovely place to have a coffee. However, they DO let dogs in. This one very well behaved.

Comments

[Bevis]

The photos continue to impress. There never seems to be any grey clouds just beautiful blue sky. Have you seen the river in Innsbruk we remember it flowing very fast presumably from melting snow straight from the mountains Keep enjoying yourselves .