Before we took this trip, we had planned out every day in every city ... except Innsbruck. That was because we have come to depend on European guide/ hippie/nerd /genius Rick Steves for suggestions both mainstream and off the beaten path. So far, I think about 90% of his recommendations have panned out for us. But we couldn't find anything by Rick for Innsbruck, so we figured we'd do it bareback.
After a very emotional few days in Munich and Salzburg, a couple of days with no agenda or itinerary sounded pretty good.
Innsbruck proved to be a great place to platz.
Of course, it wasn't that easy. Upon arrival at the train station, we promptly got lost and spent an hour wandering around aimlessly while truck drivers and sunbathers tried to give us directions and we tried to understand why, if all Europeans were supposed to speak Englisch, we found the only 10 people who didn't. (In truth, I'm positively embarrassed we Americans are so linguistically challenged ... I guess we need more Bible in our schools and less education, if possible! But that's another discussion.)
The one thing that became apparent as we shlepped our bags down the street was that Innsbruck is surrounded by HUNDREDS of BIG MOUNTAINS. Most of them were obscured by thick black clouds, but I couldn't get over the forboding, imposing Alps and the way they seemed to crowd the people of this ancient city into a single green valley. The black clouds made it look almost surreal. Though none are as big as the Rockies, they sure seem bigger, sharper and, well, rockier. Maybe that has something to do with the difference in altitude between base and summit. Innsbruck isn't a mile high like Denver, or 6,000 ft. high like Santa Fe.
We spent the afternoon exploring the old city of Innsbruck and the black clouds became a very heavy rainstorm, which continued until evening. So after all the feelings we'd had in Munich and Salzburg, we had a new feeling in Innsbruck. We felt ... WET!
Took a bunch of pictures, had a very nice dinner -- including something that resembled matzo ball soup (except the knedel was full of bacon!) -- and went home hoping that the skies would clear and we'd be able to get up into the mountain villages overlooking Innsbruck the next day.
As the clouds began to clear and the peaks began to peek through the sunset, I began to think that I'd be nuts to actually try to haul my somewhat sedentary self up higher than two or three flights of stairs.
NEXT -- I am nuts!
No comments:
Post a Comment