Innsbruck, Austria
July 29-30, 2007

We made the 3 hour drive from Duernstein rather easily, arriving late afternoon to the city. I had found a couple of apartments about 30 minutes outside of town but we didn’t feel like staying so far away, so we found a small hotel just a few blocks from the old town, dropped off our stuff, and walked around Innsbruck. In the Winter I imagine this place to be even more crowded, as the skiers embrace what this city has to offer. This afternoon it was not nearly as crowded as I would have expected and we enjoyed strolling the old town, including viewing the "Golden Roof", built in 1500 for Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emporer. We ate a quick dinner and then headed back to the hotel to sleep (although not before letting the girls play a few minutes on a playground that we passed on our walk back to the hotel). Our hotel is just down the street from St. Nicolas church, which we didn’t realize rings its bell every ½ hour ALL night long! So it wasn’t a great night’s sleep, but we survived.
We woke up casually in the morning and then walked to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. We then walked back to the old town and enjoyed a quiet stroll before there were too many people in our way. We wanted to go up the clock tower, which we purposely waited until this morning to do but we found out that it did not open until 10AM and we wouldn’t have time. So we walked back to our car, stopping off at a grocery store before driving up the hill outside of town to the Schloss Ambras, commissioned in 1563 by the Archduke Ferdinand II to transform a medievel fortress into a renaissance castle for his wife. We walked around the castle grounds and ran into a few peacocks that the kids played with for a while (at least they followed one around for a bit). We then drove back into Innsbruck to pick up the 9 passenger van that we rented to drive us plus my parents, plus my Aunt JoAnne and Uncle Bryce through Switzerland.