We started out the morning early after our 24 hour day of travel. We opted to do as much outdoor stuff as possible today because unfortunately, there is rain in the forecast for the rest of the week. Our AirBnB is about a 4 minute walk to the ski lift that takes us up the mountain to all the fun stuff. We opted for an AirBnB up on the hillside of Innsbruck instead of in the city because we wanted to be a bit more stress free AND closer to the mountain. Totally. Worth. It.
We bought the Innsbruck Card which included one round trip up the mountain on the cable car (it would have cost us €18 each!) It also includes all the public transit, all the museums, castles, and a 3 hour bike rental in the city! The cost was €59 each for a 72 hour pass. We are here for 5 days, so it was 100% worth the cost for us. Because we are so high up above the city, the pass will pay for itself with the bus trips we will use getting up and down the hill to the rest of the town and all the museums and historical sites. Even though we have a car, the parking lot in town costs €2.80 per hour, so you see why the Innsbruck Card was a must.
We took the cable car up the mountain and hiked many of the trails at the top. They call this area the “Nordkette” which means “Jewel of the Alps” and it did not disappoint. Karewendell Nature Park is Austria’s largest nature park, which includes the Nordkette, and is seriously 15 minutes from the city center. The mountain biking trails looked insane! It took two cable cars to get us up to the tip top of the ski area. As you’ll see from the pictures, the view was just fantastic. The highest we got was 7616 feet and that was from the Hafelekar! I looked around for Edelweiss because it’s supposed to grow at that altitude, but I didn’t see any. I really love the pride Austrians take in their outdoor activities. These folks don’t mess around.
We hiked for about 4 hours and discovered trails on the edge of the world and even a flock of sheep! We ended the afternoon with lunch at the Hafelekarstub’n (a bistro at the tip-top of the mountain) where we both warmed up with soup and beer. It was the perfect Innsbruckian afternoon!
If you want to know a little science trivia, Innsbruck is the place where Cosmic Radiation was discovered! Victor Hess was a physicist in the early 1900’s and he moved to Innsbruck particularly because the cable cars could get him and his instruments up the mountain very quickly. He took a number of balloon rides from the top of the mountain and was able to see that even from that high up, there was no significant change in radiation compared to ground level which led him to conclude that the radiation waves must be coming from further out in space, hence the name “cosmic rays.” He won the Noble Prize in Physics in 1936, but ended up immigrating to New York with his Jewish wife during the beginning of WWII. Basically the space program began in Innsbruck!
Tomorrow you’ll see what we were up to later that afternoon! We went back to the AirBnB for a “costume change” and hit the center of town. I can’t believe that this was just half of our busy day! What do you suggest we see in downtown Innsbruck?
