Day 24 – Another Look At Innsbruck

Feb 6, 2024

Today’s Adventure

Cindy and I love the mountains and really don’t care much for cities, so our Day 24 outing to the surprisingly cosmopolitan city of Innsbruck was a real departure (pun intended). We first visited Innsbruck in January of 2020 on our way back from the Dolomites to Munich for our flight home. There were a couple of real highlights from that first visit that were worthy of a repeat while we were in the area so we set aside a day to make it happen.

We started the day with an 8:45 S-Bahn train from the Seefeld Bahnhof. This put us in the heart of Innsbruck at the main train station just 45 minutes later. After leaving the Bahnhof we wandered through the Altstadt (Old Town) and made our way to the Inn River, namesake for the city of Innsbruck – a derivative of ‘Inn’ for the river and ‘Brücke’ meaning ‘bridge’.

At the river we turned upstream and made our way to the architecturally stunning Löwenhaus station for the Hungerburgbahn funicular railway. This railway is the first of three stages for the Nordkettebahn, our transportation to a memorable high altitude attraction known as ‘The Top of Innsbruck’.

This attraction is the real deal – the railway plus the Seegruben gondola and the Hafelekar cable car take you up to a snow-bound observation platform that’s 5,700 feet above the valley floor. The views of the city, the airport, the surrounding mountains, and even the Olympic ski jump facility on the other side of the valley are very much like you’re flying a mile high. But of course you really are 1.1 miles up!

After getting our fill of the views (and taking lots of pictures) we made our way back down to the city via cable car, gondola, and finally the funicular. We wandered into the Altstadt, walked along the Maria Theresien Straße pedestrian mall, and then found our restaurant destination.

Our lunch choice for today was La Trattoria Cucina Italiana. Cindy and I shared an excellent wood-fired pizza topped with tomato, mozzarella, basil, raw ham, and fresh burrata. This was paired with two Ichnusa beers from the island of Sardinia. We both agree that this was the best pizza of the entire trip – it’s ironic that we’re in Austria, right?

After lunch we enjoyed another special treat – a visit to the Tiroler Volkskunst Museum (German for ‘Tyrolean Folk Art Museum’) and the adjoining Court Church.

The museum is home to a truly unique display of room interiors salvaged from homes built in the Südtirol (now part of Italy) from the 1400’s to the 1700’s. These are full-size rooms that were carefully salvaged and then reconstructed inside the museum. You can walk through them and study the exquisite wood detail, but picture taking is tough as the lighting is very limited. I did my best as flash photography is not permitted.

The Court Church was built in the mid-1500’s to house the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I. Also called the Schwarzmanderkirche (literally ‘black men church’), this church is known for 28 over-sized Renaissance bronze statues of historical figures flanking the massive marble tomb of Emperor Maximilian I. The bronze has patinated to an almost pure black, thus the name.

After getting our fill of culture (and cities!) we retraced our steps to the Bahnhof and caught the next S-Bahn back to Seefeld. We arrived at the hotel around 4:00 and found ourselves with a couple of much-appreciated hours to relax before dinner.

The weather looks good for tomorrow so if the forecast holds we’ll be headed to the small village of Mösern. This is the starting point for what promises to be a nice loop hike around the southwest corner of the Seefeld plateau.

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.