A stop on our Interrail journey, Innsbruck was the most pleasant place we visited in Austria.
Situated in an Alpine valley, there are mountains on either side, with the closer ones being to the North.
Our journey had taken us south from Munich into the Austrian Alps. A short but spectacular hop. While Germany had been ok, especially Munich, the trip had gone up a notch due to the amazing mountain scenery.
We changed train at Seefield in Tirol for the last leg into Innsbruck. Past villages with domed churches and houses decorated with window boxes full of flowers. Snow on the mountain tops.
We found a quiet central park to relax in, eat some basic travel food and wrote some notes into our diaries to remember the journey. Diaries now long lost. Next to the park the wide river Inn flowing by cold and green from glacier meltwater.
While there are some tourist sights in Innsbruck such as a famous medieval balcony, an imperial palace and a renaissance castle, we didn’t do these. We just chilled in our park, relaxing after long days of train travel.
Near the city is the village of Igls and we headed up there to check out the small lake. A bit cold for swimming, though people do swim there in summer. A pretty spot.
We should have sampled the apple strudel at least, but funds were tight and we stuck to our basic sustenance.
We didn’t stay in Innsbruck long but we liked it there, but then back onto the train west into the Swiss Alps. Somewhere to go back to one day.
Austria had been good, but with the nature of Interrail we weren’t stopping anywhere long. Getting a brief taster of countries that we would then go back to and explore in more detail later.
Image : Bharat Patil