Innsbruck

I have only been to Innsbruck’s Airport as part of flight training, but not the city. Given that it’s a relatively short train ride across the border, and the city’s size is perfect for a weekend getaway, it was certainly up there on the to-do list.

Saturday

Got on the Saturday morning 8:40 AM EuroCity train from Zurich to Innsbruck.

It runs a picturesque route through the Alps, and I didn’t have to change trains on the way. We were however a little late arriving in Innsbruck.

Passing the Walensee lake in eastern Switzerland.

Bought two take-away sandwiches at the train station in Innsbruck for lunch and walked over to my hotel. I arrived there at 12:30ish, and the reception told me my room wasn’t ready, but I was more than welcome to leave my bag in their luggage storage. I sat down in the lobby to eat my sandwiches, and could hear the receptionist talking on the phone with the cleaning staff. Before I had finished the last sandwich, less than 15 minutes after I first showed up, I was informed my room was now ready for check-in. Score! I still had my bag beside me, so I simply picked up the key and went upstairs to my room. 

After having checked-in, I walked over to Innsbruck’s central old town, kicking off my sightseeing at the Goldenes Dachl Museum.

The Goldenes Dachl (translating to The Golden Roof) was built for Emperor Maximilian I, who reigned from 1459 to 1519. The building is named after the golden roof of its balcony. The balcony was hidden underneath a temporary concrete shell to protect it from damage during World War II. Inside is a museum about the history of Maximilian I and the building itself. 

Next up was the Hofburg (Imperial Palace), built for Archduke Sigmund the Rich in the 15th century. The palace was refurbished in a baroque style during the 18th century. It is one of the most important castles in Austria from a historical and cultural point of view. You can walk through the rooms used by the royals.

 

Just a block east of the Hofburg is the Hofkirche, the royal court church, built in 1553. There’s an empty sarcophagus for Emperor Maximilian I in the center of the church. 

My next stop was the Schloss Ambras on a hill southeast of the city center. This necessitated my first trip with Innsbruck public transport, and I had no idea what I was in for. My usual go-to spot for finding public transport connections is the Google Maps app…which suggested a 42 minute walk. Alright, so the public transport network probably has a separate app, and that turned out to be the case. This app only showed your nearby bus/tram stops and the schedules from these stops, but had no overview map or search function. For a search function, you needed to go to the website of the public transit provider.

Very few stops had a map of the public transport network. Ticket machines didn’t explain anything, and for a map of the ticketing zones, you needed to go to their website too. To make matters worse, some busses are by a letter, most trams have numbers, and some buses have 3 or 4-digit number designators instead of letters.

It seemed that more often than not, only part of the route was serviced. Some bus lines would split along the route to do a different set of stops, but under the same number/letter designator. Of course, every vehicle showed its end stop on displays, which indicated whether it did a partial route or a split route. For a visitor however, it was near impossible to figure out whether the next bus was actually the right bus, with no clue where the stops were located around the city. Having to rely so much on internet to figure out the public transit was appalling. I have international roaming included in my cell phone subscription, but that is definitely not true for every traveler. I’m sure locals have figured out the local transit network, but for a visitor it was very, very confusing. 

So anyway, my rant about Innsbruck’s public transport aside, I eventually got to the Schloss Ambras castle. All after initially getting on the wrong bus (the right letter but the wrong “split route”).

The Schloss Ambras was taken over by Archduke Ferdinand II in 1564. There’s several museum exhibits inside, and a small chapel. The definite highlight of the castle however is the Spanish Hall. This large banquet hall is covered by portraits of Tyrolean nobles from the era the castle was taken over. 

Next stop for me was the Swarovski World of Crystals, which is in Wattens, 15km/10mi east of Innsbruck. The IVB (public transit provider)’s website suggested taking a train to a different town and then a bus that would stop at the museum. When I looked at the map, I realized that this would take me far past Wattens. I could just get out at the Wattens train station and do a 20-minute walk, or take an extra 45-minute trip past Wattens with the train and the bus to “avoid walking”. Obviously I got out in Wattens and walked. 

The Swarovski Crystal Worlds is a museum that consists of art pieces made with Swarovski crystals and diamonds, as well as the history of the place. There’s indoor and outdoor parts, and literally millions and millions of crystals here. Highlights include a 310,000 carat diamond produced in 1995, the largest hand-cut crystal in the world.

Noteworthy is also the Crystal Cloud, consisting of 800,000 crystals in a cloud-like shape hanging over a mirror lake. 

To get back to Innsbruck I had to buy a new ticket. There was a shuttlebus leaving shortly past 7 PM, but my public transport return ticket wasn’t valid for this particular bus. The driver said it was a private line financed by Swarovski (despite being driven by the regular bus company). 

For dinner, I went to the Fischerhäusl in Innsbruck’s city center. Ordered a salad and the “Tiroler Gröstl”, a pan of potatoes, meat, eggs and other ingredients all fried together. 

Sunday

Checked out of my hotel, then went to the Tyrolean State Museum, which bills itself as an art & history museum. Sure, it had art pieces too, but the archaeological section in the basement was the true highlight. Here, the museum displayed pieces from as far back as the year 2000 BC. 

After the State Museum, I went south towards the Bergisel mountain. This has been the site of bloody battles between French/Bavarian and Austrian soldiers in 1809. Today however, the only battles going on here are between ski jumpers.

The Bergisel mountain is home to Innsbruck’s ski jumping stadium, which was part of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. The ramp has however been modified since then. The stadium is open for visitors, and you can walk all the way up to the ski jump ramp. A lift will take you to the top of the ramp for views over the surrounding area.

Very interestingly, the ticket seller at the Bergisel Stadium correctly guessed I was Danish, purely based on my accent when speaking German. 

Further east on the hillside is the Tyrol Panorama, which isn’t actually about views out of the windows. It is a museum about the state of Tyrol itself and its culture and history.

Other than a circular painting of the Battles of Bergisel, it was a rather illogical display of various artefacts from around the region. Each part of the exhibits were completely random and there wasn’t much of a common theme anywhere.

The Tyrol Panorama is connected to the Kaiserjägermuseum, with both museums covered on the same ticket. The Kaiserjäger were infantry regiments in the Austrian Army from 1895 to 1918. I thought the museum would give an explanation about the history of these special Austrian Army units, but it turned out to be mostly hundreds of portrait paintings of officers. 

For lunch I returned downtown to visit the Stiftskeller, which was packed with locals when I arrived. I had a Tyrolean snack platter for an appetizer, followed by a beef ragout.

It wasn’t only locals at the restaurant. A bit after I got there, an American couple sat down at the table next to me. It turned out the husband was stationed in southern Germany as part of the US Navy, and they did weekend trips to the surrounding regions.  

Stopped by the 18th century Dom St. Jakob. St. James’ Cathedral, as it is known in English, has an exterior covered in construction material, but an interior decorated in great detail. 

My last point of interest became the Stadtturm tower in the heart of old town Innsbruck, built in 1450. You can climb up the 51 meter (~155 feet) tall tower for views over central Innsbruck and its surrounding mountains. 

My train back to Zurich was scheduled for a 3:48 PM departure. It certainly wasn’t the last train of the day, but I needed to get back to Zurich not all too late. Monday morning I had to be at work at 5:30 AM. I left the Stadtturm and got to my hotel 15 minutes prior to the departure time in order to pick up my bag. I was in no hurry, as it takes less than 10 minutes to walk to the train station, and I already had my ticket. When I entered the train station at 3:40, my 3:48 train was indicated on the screens as delayed for about 50 minutes until 4:40 PM. Even worse, they had set up a bus as a replacement, but the screens just indicated the platform as “BUS”. Obviously, Innsbruck’s central train station has several bus stops.

I overheard some other travelers in the same fate getting directions to the correct bus platform, and followed them there. It turned out that this platform was on the other side of the train station all by itself. At this point it was past the scheduled departure time anyway. It turned out the bus wasn’t even there, but two dozens Zurich-bound passengers were waiting. The bus would drive to Buchs, just across the Austrian/Swiss border. From that stop you would have to transfer anyway.

I asked a railroad employee when the bus would reach Buchs, and she simply looked up the driving distance on Google Maps. With that information, most passengers including myself started searching for onward connections. It turned out that the bus was no faster than the train, and perhaps even slower. It was still uncertain when the bus would appear, and how long the drive to Buchs would actually take.

Most passengers going all the way to Zurich decided to take the train. At 4:40, we were on our way, and it turned out the delay was caused by a medical emergency earlier. Along the way in western Austria, we had to stop for another 15 minutes because a train traveling in the opposite direction malfunctioned. So we picked up much more delay. Eventually we arrived in Zurich at around 8:15 PM, almost a full hour behind schedule.