innsbruck, austria

17/1/15

Overnight it became apparent that Adelboden and the weather didn't want us to leave.  It had snowed all night and covered the ground with snow.  Still it only took us about 10 mins to walk down the hill from Our Chalet to catch the 0554 bus from Adelboden Oey.  Yeah, 0554... I was up at 0445... WAYYYYYY to early!!

We caught the bus from Adelboden to Frutigen, the train from Frutigen to Bern, Bern to Zurich, Zurich to Feldkirch and finally Feldkirch to Innsbruck.  It took us all morning to get there, but finally at 12ish we arrived in Innsbruck.

Innsbruck is the capital city of the federal state of Tyrol in Western Austria.  After getting map from the information booth and exiting the train station the first stop was the Tiny Arc De Triomphe on one of the main streets.  It was built in 1765 from the stones of the former city gate.  It has two sides - happy and sad.  The happy celebrates the marriage of a son of Maria Theresa and a the sad which remembers her late husband Franz Stephan.

Next stop was the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof).  Considered Innsbruck's most famous symbol, it was completed in 1500, the roof is decorated with 2,738 fire-gilded copper tiles for Emperor Maximilian I to mark his marriage to Bianca Maria Sforza.  The balcony was used to observe festivals, and other events which took place in the Square below.  In 2007, during an art project a single shingle was swapped from the roof with a wooden one from a barn near by.  From there it was stolen again and found two years later on a roof of another barn.  In 2012, the scaffolding used for restoration work was used to steal another seven shingles.  A week later they re-appeared in post offices around town.  It is still a mystery as to who stole them.  

 

The Goldenes Dachl and Me & The square it looks onto

We continued walking around and looked through several little stores and streets. We even walked in and around a Baroque Church (below). 

 

We found the river 'Inn' and then the bridge which crosses it, the bridge which Innsbruck is named after.  The word 'bruck' comes from the same root as the modern German word "Brucke"meaning 'bridge', leading to the 'bridge over the Inn' or Innsbruck.  

We had a late lunch at McDonalds... some of the most expensive Maccas I have ever had! However it was the nicest and most historically maintained Maccas as well.  They had maintained the original arches of the buildings roof and the decorations were even time period appropriate to the building!

We stayed in Innsbruck and just generally wandered around the city and area after lunch, until we decided to head to Liechtenstein.  Heres where we hit a snag.  We started walking to the Bahnhof  (train st) at about one thirty, we expected it not to take too long.  However some how we managed to get very lost after walking down Universitatsstrasse (University Street) and ending up in the middle of no where.  We found a florist shop along the way and asked a lovely old gentleman where the Bahnhof was and he was able to tell us.  I had completely lost my sense of direction by then and was just following what he had said and hoping he was right.  Turns out he was.... because we eventually found the train line and then the station after that. 

Our plan to leave early then fell through and we caught the train we had originally planned to catch - the 3:45 train to Feldkirch, a 2 hr train. From Feldkirch we caught bus number 21 to Vaduz, Post then changed to bus number 11 as per our Host AirBnB's lady's instructions.  We got off at Triesen, Vaschiel and walk down the hill to her house.  She was absolutely lovely and even had maps and ideas for things to do tomorrow around Liechtenstien.  We arrived around six thirty ish, just as they were sitting down for dinner.

Just after 8 pm we caught a lift with our host lady into Vaduz, to go to the Coop Petrol Station to buy some food for dinner and breakfast.  We just bought an oven pizza and some drinks... It was nice to sit and have a hot dinner which didn't require much cooking on our behalf!!