We awoke, packed and walked to the subway station, and from there to the train station. The train to Innsbruck was a “Railjet” train, which was the nicest train that we’ve been on yet. We had the entire car essentially to ourselves. After catching up on journals, we mostly played cards and watched the countryside for the trip. Austria is quite lovely – clean, green, the farms laid out neatly, everything brightly painted, and the alps in the background.

We arrived at Innsbruck in the early afternoon and took the bus from the station to our hotel. There was the usual uncertainty about how to get the tickets, etc., but things went smoothly. The hotel itself was located across the Inn river and partway up the mountainside overlooking Innsbruck. It was next door to a Schloss, and the hostel itself was an extremely old building that had once been a clock factory several hundred years ago. No one was there when we arrived, so we dropped our bags and walked down into town.

Ww crossed a footbridge over the river, which was gray from the chalk in the alps, I guess, and then headed through a small park to the old part of town. There, we stopped for lunch at a pasta place and had ice cream for desert.

I then stopped in the tourist office and picked up city cards for Innsbruck, and then we walked a bit further through the old town before heading back to the rooms to check in. None of the buildings really stood out for me – they are all lovely and have a nice old european feel to them, but the star of the show was really the alps that loom over the town on both sides. They were formed by glaciers, and so even though they are not nearly as tall as the Rockies, they are much steeper, and so seem to tower over the town.

After checking in, Phyllis and I left the others and walked back into town to search for a grocery store or market to buy dinner. We rode a streetcar through more of the town, but found that most of the stores had closed early. Eventually, we found a small store and picked up some fruit and pretzels. I also bought a pack of ice cream cones that we ate on the walk back home.  Once back, we played cards for a bit and then turned in for the night.