Final Words on Austria

I actually did not expect to be back in the shadow of the glorious Alps again after our departure from Switzerland. But I am so glad I was wrong! Our REAL final encounter with those mountains came from the Austrian side of things, in the city of Innsbruck. Upon our arrival in the city and the sight of the alps dominating the skyline once again, you can bet we set off hiking as soon as possible (meaning, of course, the second day in town since the first night was spent stuffing our faces full of pizza from a university-oriented pizza shop while sitting by the river).

Unlike Gimmelwald, where we essentially took the cable car to base camp and then hiked both up and down the mountain for multiple days, here we just took the tram/funicular (one of the coolest transit engineering feats I've ever seen) and cable car up to Seegrube at around 2200m above sea level, which also happens to be the tree line. The three of us got a real kick out of being able to throw snowballs at one another in July. All the snow and stark gray walls of rock surrounding us were quite beautiful. The view of Innsbruck and the surrounding Austrian countryside wasn't too shabby either.

 

 

Our hike this time was completely down the mountain. That means that, while we didn't get the cardiovascular workout we got in Gimmelwald, we definitely got very intense leg workouts. The hike took a total of around 7 hours, if I'm not mistaken, and was made up of a mixture of overly graveled roads and a few poorly marked woodsy paths. One thing is for sure: the Austrians fail at mountain path signage compared to the Swiss.

Besides all the Alps hiking and general exploration of this cute town sized somewhere between Bern and Interlaken, this was a pretty low key stop for us, and a nice close to our time in Austria.