Day 8: Innsbruck: A Day of Coo Coo Clocks, Crystals and Bosnian Buns

Oh my gosh, the second half of this trip seems to have flown by. It’s harder for me to keep track of the cities and I’m getting behind on my blog!

We departed Salzburg after our three nights at a beautiful inn outside the city and made our way into Innsbruck, where we would only have one night. 

It was a very *very* hot afternoon and there weren’t any specific sights here to see. Innbsruck is famous for hosting the Winter Olympics and the town is very nice, but after just a short walking tour of a few sites, we were free to wander and explore again. 

Innsbruck was known for being weathy area, as a result of the resources in the area-  salt and crystals. The emperor at the time, Maximillion I was upset the bishop of the land was becoming to wealthy so the emperor decided to establish *his* reign here and that’s when he built his Kaiserhof (Kaiser = emperor, hof = castle.) 

There were also beautiful buildings such as the golden tiled roof- which is what all the students below were gazing at.

     

   
Our free time was spent mainly just searching for shade. Lunch? Oh, this cafe has shade! Street wandering? Oh, this side of the street has shade! I did make it up to their city’s version of the Arc de Triumph, where they tried to mimic the French one. 

  
I also came across a high school band concert performing in the heat, poor things, and stopped into the Swarovski crystal headquarters for a little bling. 

  
    

    
   
The best part of the day was when we faced the daunting fact of walking farther, to more of the outskirts of town to a park we had seen on our way in. It turned out to be a music festival happening! It was lovely to find a spot in the quiet and COOL park hearing music coming from all around the park. 

  

 
 

At the meet up time, we made our way out of Innsbruck to the hotel. It was more of a ski lodge that was made into a hotel for tour groups in the summer, but there was a soccer field and basketball hoop and the kids started a game of soccer with some neighborhood kids and enjoyed the evening. 
The guide had announced when we arrived that that wifi was down, so after dinner Amy and I walked the 7 minutes across the bridge into a small town outside if Innsbruck. We were looking for a restaurant with wifi so she could upload the pictures from the day for the parents back home.

It was a beautiful evening and we enjoyed the relaxing get a way… 

 

Until we returned to the hotel. It was a little after 10 and had gotten dark. There were other people staying at the hotel who just had arrived on motorbikes and were sitting and drinking outside at the tables. Amy and I walked up and they called out to us and tried to start some small talk, but soon we realized the main doors were locked and we were locked out! How they planned on getting back in they didn’t share, plus there was the slight language barrier. We were getting panicked, while they, on the other hand, were very much enjoying our dilemma. At one point, one put his arm around Amy and asked “You are Bosnian?” at which they all exploded with laughter. We tried the key, we looked for a scanner and were doing everything we could when we saw another guest (and friend of the outside crowd) come in the lobby towards us! Oh! Here was someone who was going to let us in! Except, wait.. No, instead, he bent over, pulled down his pants and mooned all his friends. At this point, we decided to go around the corner to the side of the hotel to see if colleague Amy was rooming with- or any of the students!- a) were awake or b) had their windows open or c) anything. I think we would have started throwing rocks. 

In what can only be described as divine intervention, our colleague was already at her window and saw us down below!! We flagged her to come down & let us in and the evening that could have resulted in Amy and I riding off with some new Bosnian biker friends, instead ended up with a good nights sleep.