Day 14 – Innsbruck Altstadt

Jan 25, 2020

Today’s Blog Entry

Cindy and I visited Innsbruck, Austria this past Friday and Saturday on our way to Munich for Monday’s flight back across the pond. We had passed through Innsbruck a couple of times before as part of an earlier trip to Austria (2012) and knew that it looked interesting, so when our itinerary for this year’s Italian odyssey put us in the area we decided to add a couple of nights for wandering around.

Innsbruck got its name over a thousand years ago from the simple fact that it was the location of a bridge (brücke) over the River Inn. It’s a vibrant city with a surprisingly modern feel given a history of settlement dating back to pre-Roman times. It still honors that history through the preservation of an extensive Altstadt or ‘Old Town’ area, but the rest of the city has its fair share of modern art, architecture, and amenities.

Innsbruck has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in 1964 and 1976, and is a well-known winter sports destination thanks to its stunning Alpine location. In fact it was not at all uncommon during our visit to see people walking down the city streets or in the grocery store wearing ski boots or carrying skis – that’s just not something you expect in a city with a population of over 300,000.

Cindy found us a great Airbnb apartment in a new building in the heart of town next to the Innsbruck Bahnhof (train station). It could not have been more convenient because, as usual, we did all of our local travel by foot or by train. As a bonus our 10th floor apartment had a wonderful view both day and night over much of Innsbruck and into the snow-covered Alps beyond.

Here are some photo highlights from our visit. I’ve already posted the photos from our outing to the Top Of Innsbruck so I won’t duplicate them here.