So to Innsbruck (which ironically also has parking problems!). I remember going there as a child and my parents loving it. Just as in Rome every corner you turn you come face to face with a Roman fountain, in Innsbruck you turn a corner and the horizon is uplifted by a snow peaked mountain. It is one of the three cities in Austria worth going to in unison (like Venice, Florence, Rome), do Vienna, Saltsburg and Innsbruck. Like Venice, Vienna has a dark intellectual side. Satzburg like Florence is romance. And Innsbruck, not on the scale of Rome, has the soul, mainly emanating from its location. Every horizon has the view of the mountains almost as though a space ship is about to land, but not quite. The view is so spectacular, it looks unreal.
The TV programme The Jump is filmed 45 mins from the city, but it has its own jump (Bergisel, which also hovers about the roof tops, ironically, the jumpers are able to see the cemetery and graves as they are about to jump - which must be a tad disconcerting - but they still do it. I didn't have a go, but did have lunch at the 1809 restaurant next door.
If you have a sweet tooth, head to the Sacher cafe by the Hofburg Palace, which has the sacher torte cake delivered in every day from Vienna. (if there are no deliveries you get no cake), and then take a stroll around the Palace, which is still inhabited by counsel workers at a very fare rate (Innsbruck is expensive to live) - fancy giving your address as the Royal Palace? Yup, sounds good.
The Palace paintings and building has been recently renovated and its worth the history alone to find out the mother (Marie Theresa) had sixteen children, the youngest of which was Marie Antoinette, and she married them all off (wisely with the exception of poor MA). You are not allowed to take photos but I took one when no one was looking (see below). The original is in Vienna, but this is a very good copy painted at the same time.
Its less than two hours flight to Innsbruck - take Heathrow Terminal Five BA, so much more civilised than Gatwick Easyjet, but there are options. I was there ostensibly to not only walk amongst the mountains but also to see the Stubai Mother Earth ballet, directed by acclaimed choreographer Enrique Gasa Valga. Over an hour long, it takes place in Stubai - hour and half drive from Innsbruck, on a mountain tops. Like a sol et lumier, plus plus, the ballet dancers dance in thick fur coats for half the performance, an opera singer sings her heart out (in fur) it is freezing after all, and there are horses, horse carriages, motor bikes (who drive straight up a mountain side to Led Zeppelin (very very very cool as in freezing), and the skiers in sync are increasable. So taken was I by the sheer drama of the performance in the first five minutes, I started to cry. This of course could be menopause and hormone imbalance - but I like to think, romantic that I am, that I was overwhelmed by the scale of the event. There was fireworks as well. My only gripe is that you had so much to look at it was a bit like a tennis match. Do you want to watch the mountain side (with the skiers, lights, carriages, horses, motorbikes) or do you want to look at the ballet dancers and the opera singers. Tough call, but I loved it. I wasn't cold once and it was minus five for over in hour standing still. Now that's a captive audience.
Also in Stubai, you are able to ski on the glacier ( 365 days a year, which in this ever changing climate will be unusual. There's a new Stubia Cable car (not heated alas) but padded seats and making the whole going up and down the mountain thing of skiing much more pleasurable. So much of skiing was lugging skis and boots up and down mountains and up and down button, chair and T bar lifts and not doing much skiing. This valley offers long pistes and Stubai especially is great for families with loads of blues and red runs which are very well kept. There's an ice grotto which is man made but fascinating, learning about how the glacier forms and actually walking under the ice. During the summer, it feels much colder than outside, in the winter, much warmer. You learn fascinating facts like it produces its own milk (mother earth indeed - see pix below) and it is ONLY 700 years old. A youngster then. And it is like everything else, getting smaller.
I stayed at the Alders hotel, although there are a lot of Alders hotel, but its the very modern one (the other one is in the old quarter, cobbled street, where everyone from Albert Camus, to Jean Paul Sartre to Mozart has stayed (there's a plaque outside which says so). The modern one is a quick stroll to the train station, and the shopping centre, and touristy bits. It has a great spa, and everywhere from where you have breakfast to your bedrooms, have wonderful views of those mountains again. What a view to wake up to, have breakfast to, have a sauna too.
Would I recommend Innsbruck for a weekend? Yes, absolutely. Its affordable, accessible, and really good any time of year mainly because ski resorts have had to pull their socks up and make money in in the summer months. But its really good hiking, snow shoeing, cross country, tobaganing (at night or day), as well as mountain biking, (there is a bike city with stunning trails, designed for beginners, improvers, super fit and mad people) rock climbing, and Innsbruck itself is an interesting, vibrant city with bells on. (There's a place where they make bells here and with over 56 churches, there's a lot of bells on Sundays (they are all consecrated). You could of course try the Bergisel ski jump but having viewed it, I have incredible admiration for Eddie the Eagle (see pic below) who jumped this with his eyes closed (literally). Amazing.
What else should you do while there? When you reach the top of the glacier, take the extra (200 odd) steps to the very top. The view (again) tops everything else. The mountains rise above the mist and it is something out of Lord of the Rings. But take a deep breath because you are up very high and the altitude does effect some people (taking a bottle of coke is good - all that sugar).
When you bring yourself down out of the clouds (this is hard to do), you'll want something to eat and drink. The beer is good here, but ask for the local variety - long glasses and wonderfully cold. Plus the liquor (in the old town there is a shop which does a colourful variety (see below) literally.
Eat strudel (they have so many varieties here over and above the apple and sultana). Eat the dried meats (visit speckeria a shop www.tiroler-speckeria.at) on the old town again.
At the restaurants, you will see griessnockerlsuppe which is the dumpling soup. Its good, try it. And drink the coffee. And of course the chocolate cake. Stroll around the medieval colonnaded medieval old town, down Maria Theresian Street, with its world renowned Golden Roof. But please spend as much time as you can in the mountains; skiing, walking, snow shoeing, biking, or just staring - looking down at Innsbruck and the valley. It is a charm of a place. And of the three gems of Austria, my favourite.
For further information check out www.innsbruck.info
www.bikepark-innsbruck.com, www.innsbruck-packages.com hotel@innsbruck.info
www.tirolwerbung.at www.stubai.at
