Europe Bus Tour-2010 - Austria

---

Onto Austria - Swarovski Crystal Museum and Innsbruck

Yesterday night hotel stay was good. Room furniture looked very IKEA-like. There was not coffee maker and alarm clock. Beda are usually separate and twin sized. We got ready in the morning of July 15th. Alarm went off at 6 am instead of 6:30. Ritesh had planned it that way so that we would leave by 8:30 today. We have a very long ride towards the Austrian border. It will take 6 hours. We will have packed lunch today (veggie burger, samosa etc).
It was a long drive. We left the hotel around 8:30 am. Plan is to drive thru Stuttgart, outskirts of Munich and get to the border. It is more than 220 kms. We took a break for restroom before lunch. Lunch was pre-packed. We ate in a reststop area standing! Restrooms work strange here. First, you pay 50 cents per person. You get a coupon for it. When you buy any item from the attached store, you get 50 cent discount on it. We ended up buying candies and nuts etc. Lunch was veggie burger, apple, a chocolate bar and samosa. Threre were at least 2 accidents on the way. Since there is no shoulder in the highways, the traffic becomes standstill until the accident is cleared. We were stuck for 45 minutes in one place without moving an inch.
By the time we reached Swavorski crystal museum, it was 5:10 pm. We had to rush in since the admission closes at 5:30. It was a good experience. They have mixed modern art, music with crystal to show us a story about crystals. There are 15 rooms with different themes to display crystal effects. After the museum, there is a showroom. One can buy ornaments here. Mattens, where the museum and manufacturing center is located is in middle of the alpine mountains. The scene is spectacular, with ski slopes all around. There was little snow left on the top though.
We drove to Innsbruck after the museum tour, Bauer hotel is right in the downtown, 5 minutes walk from the center square. Inside, hotel was very modern. Innsbruck is the 2012 host of winter Olympics. Golden roof palace, house that looks like wedding cake, victory arch are some of the main attractions. It is a very quaint area walkable to all the attractions. There is a river Inns that cuts the town. After sightseeing and shopping we walked to the Sahib Indian restaurant for dinner. It was the usual full-fledged meal. We left the kids in the room and strolled around for 30 minutes. We came back to the room around 11:20 pm. Wired internet is free here.

---