We are on the slow, scenic train out of the Lienz Valley, heading to Italy to make our connection to Innsbruck. The train is mostly empty, there are a few cyclists with their bikes who will get off in Italy and ride back to Lienz, and some climbers moving to the next valley, the next set of mountains.
I hate to leave. This has been the best week of the trip.
But, we are excited to head to Innsbruck, to see what is there. We have about a week left before we head home.
We are staying at the Weinhaus Happ, in a room with a built in, glassed balcony sitting area, overlooking the famous "Golden Roof" (made, ironically, of copper tiles) and the main cafe and walking area of the Altstatt (Old City). The family-run hotel was built in 1484, 531 years ago.
Our room was built before Columbus set sail to America.
As you might expect, it is not a fancy place, but it is large, and the seating area is nice.
They lost our reservation, and gave the room with the outside balcony to someone else, but it looks like it will turn out OK, due to the rain. Still...
We were hungry and thirsty, so we stopped right off at the Republica Cafe, in the square, for a loser lunch. I wish we had looked around the corner. We spent too much for mediocre wine, tasteless gnocchi and a yucky (but nice looking) cheese plate. At least the wasser mit gas was good.
Hard to ruin water.
Walking around, you notice what an old, ornate city Innsbruck is. The multi-colored narrow buildings are tall, standing shoulder to shoulder along the street, around the platz and across the river. There are some fountains, a column with a statue, several churches with steeples and colorful clocks, and the typical cobblestone streets.
It looks sort of like Bern, Switzerland with portico covered walkways along the shops.
The building fronts have plaques commemorating this or that event, and a famous person or two. There are a couple that mention Mozart. Boy, he really got around (We saw plaques about him in Salzburg and other places).
I think the one says he "...blew his nose here..." and one of the others mentions something about "...spouting in disgust..." over there.
There are a lot of beggars and gypsies out. It all seems so busy after being in the small mountain towns for a week.
Clouds hide the tops of the high mountains that surround the city. You can only see as high as tree line, and the bottom of rock slides fanned out at the top edges of the pines.
We walked and looked, listening to some music performances, looking at the "statue" people and poking along the shops. The bells rang across the city, and we stopped to look in a couple of the churches and the main cathedral, St. Jakob's Dom (Cathedral of Saint James).
One of the smaller churches, a pink one, had a unique painting on the ceiling, showing that heaven looks a lot like Innsbruck.
Comforting to know.
Hopefully that includes the mountains.
It got colder, the clouds moved down the mountain, so we stopped for our coats and then headed to a "beer garden" of sorts over two blocks off the Main Street.
It is called Siftskeller Bier Garten and the beer is from München. I had a decent pork meal, Gail got three types of sausages and a pretzel, and we both had a weissbier.
We spent another hour walking out to see the edges of the tourist area, and to make some sort of plan for tomorrow in case of rain.