Europe #3 - Innsbruck

The last city we visited in Europe was Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. After the cold and windy experience (at times) of Paris and Netherlands, Innsbruck was a wonderful change – it didn’t feel that cold, it was not windy all of which made it easy to walk around. Something absolutely necessary given how scenic the place is.

 

Since the hotel check-in time was much later in the day, we left the baggage and went to the Swarovski HQ-cum-museum about an hour by bus from Innsbruck. The crystal exhibits were brilliant – colorful, bright, shiny. Jewellery aside, it was a display of what one can do with crystals. While my wife and daughter loved the jewellery, I liked the superhero themed exhibits of Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, and Star Wars. We didn’t buy anything there, though we did buy stuff in the Swarovski store in Innsbruck – jewellery, not the superhero stuff.

 

Innsbruck is a major tourist attraction during the skiing season but now in summer, we saw many groups of Indians and Chinese on conducted tours of the place. Those numbers must be high, as exemplified by the presence of an Indian restaurant, an Indian store named Namaste, and Chinese signboards in the Swarovski stores. With so many tourists, English was never a problem.

 

We went up to the top of Innsbruck via cable car. The view was great, but it was too cold and windy for us, so we didn’t hang out there for long. On the way down, we stopped at the Alpen Zoo – it was nothing great, just the kind of place you visit because it’s on the way. We also visited a church-cum-museum – our first in the Europe trip, imagine that! – that was superb. The colorful gingerbread houses and the river flowing through the city, the Alps all around – the city is gorgeous. After our stint in Paris and the Netherlands, Innsbruck was refreshingly not crowded.

 

We found an excellent bakery called Der Backer Ruetz that was perfect for breakfast – soft, fresh and delicious muffins and croissants. The pizzas in the different joints we went to were excellent too.

 

Innsbruck was the one leg of our European trip where we were not rushing around, which made it a different kind of experience. With that, our trip was coming to an end – it was time to go back to Paris for the flight home. We took the day (scenic) train to Paris which involved a changeover at the Zurich railway station. A bit of window shopping and some Swiss chocolate purchases later, we were on our way back to Paris.

 

The flight from Paris to Frankfurt (where we had to change flights) got delayed. We were all set to rush across gates when we landed in Frankfurt, but thankfully the Frankfurt flight was delayed, so we made it comfortably for the long flight home.