Monday was a travel day. We moved from Italy to Austria. It was rainy when we left the Venice area so even though we were told we were traveling through beautiful countryside, we really could not tell.
It is amazing what you will see out the window of a bus in Italy. This is Säben Abbey a Benedictine nunnery located near Klausen in South Tyrol, northern Italy. It was occupied by nuns from 1687 until 2021.
It was not long before we knew we were headed back into the Alps, they are magnificent.
It is a long drive to Innsbruck, we made rest/lunch stops and made it to Innsbruck around 1400 and had about 3 hours of free time to explore the city.
Innsbruck is a ski and college town, it has a population of about 130K and gets 3000 visitors a day for skiing and tourism. It is a pretty town that backs up directly to the mountains.
We walked the narrow alley ways to the central part of town.
In this picture the Golden Roof can be seen, it is made of 2,657 gilded copper shingles and is the oldest and most famous building in Innsbruck. Emperor Maximilian I had the Golden Roof built between 1497 and 1500.
We first stopped at the bridge that crosses the River Inn, the views are nice but the wind coming down the river kept blowing my hat off.
From the Inn River, we walked the main street of Innsbruck, Herzog-Friedrich-Straße, or the shopping mile.
We took the main street to the southern end of town where the Triumphal Arch which was built in 1765 by order of Maria Theresa in the 18th century as a tribute to her son's wedding. However, days after the wedding Maria's husband (father of the groom) died, so Maria had the south side commemorate the wedding and the north side commemorate the passing of her husband. This is the south side.
We had some refreshments at a small cafe just south of the Arch, a beautiful setting.
Directly south of the Arch is the Bergisel Ski Jump, which hosted the winter Olympics in 1964 and 1978. We could have watched the jumps from our table, very cool.
We continued our walk back towards the center of town ducking into a few of the side streets which all seemed to open into a plaza of some sort. For example Eduard-Wallnofer Square has The Liberation Monument dedicated to those who died in the struggle for liberation from National Socialism (Nazi) from 1938 to 1945. The square had lots of ramps that were being used by young people for skate boarding.
All that walking made us thirsty again so we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe. We sat on the street and while we were there a robot came out of the side street to collect dishes, but the waiters seemed to ignore it. I asked a waiter how he liked it, he said in broken English..."It doesn't work"....LOL.
We had a nice time in town, boarded the bus and climbed into the mountains on switch backs to our hotel, Hotel Bon Alpina. This hotel is sprawling and looks like every addition was an after thought. It is a maze to find your way around, we had to pass through the bar and the restaurant with our luggage to get to our room. That being the case, the rooms are quaint with nice views.
This is the view out our window.
We were treated to a dinner that I am told was good, but they obviously did not get the memo that I hate onions....it was an onion dinner, but the strudel was good.
After dinner we attended the Tyroler Abend Family Show which included Tyrolean dancing and singing, yodeling.
It was very much like what you would see at home during Octoberfest in Stowe, VT or Whiteface, NY.
It was a late return to our hotel so we retired straight away.
Tuesday we will move to Germany.
