Day 32 – Innsbruck

We woke up to blue sky – that’s right, the fog was history and we realised that we were literally surrounded by snow-capped mountains. What an amazing sight! So we watched the locals scrape the ice from their windscreens as we waited for the bus – it was 0°…but the sun was shining so that was a plus.

 

It was just a short drive from our hotel to Innsbruck where we entered the older medieval area of the city and were excited to find that the Christmas decorations were up. These mainly consisted of depictions of fairy tales and were pretty cool. We then went to the Swarovski exhibition (and shop) and spent a pleasant hour or so oohing and ahhing over some pretty nice stuff...oh, and buying a bit of it too. An hour or so wandering the streets was quite pleasant – it is amazing to be walking along a street and then glance up to see a mountain towering over you – quite incredible.

 

 

 

So it was back on the bus to head off towards Switzerland but before we had left Austria we stopped at another awesome road-side restaurant – these places are fantastic – and had a farewell Wienner Schnitzel for lunch. Another hour or so on the bus found us in Liechtenstein, a small principality, where we made a brief stop and then it was on to Lucerne, Switzerland.

 

Unfortunately the fog had descended once again just after lunch so we missed out on some scenery but hopefully it will be clear tomorrow so we can see the Swiss Alps for ourselves. When we arrived we made a short walk to the famous Lion Monument honouring the 400 or so Swiss soldiers that were killed in the French Revolution. After settling in to the hotel room we ventured out and found a large supermarket where we grabbed some stuff for an easy dinner back in the room – some fresh fruit (clementines!), yoghurt, and umm…choc chip cookies. Well, it was sounding healthy there for a while.

 

Back in the room we did some washing, watched some very weird shows on TV – How I Met Your Mother dubbed in German, and some trashy MTV shows with German sub-titles, and generally chilled out. Tomorrow should be all about chocolate, watches and Swiss army knives…oh, and a lake cruise – can’t wait.