Friday, December 24, 2010

Europe - Innsbruck

finally got enough time to sit down and put up the posts for Europe... :)

12 morning Sept '10

Woke up to a beautiful morning, arriving in beautiful Austria! Once we step out of the train station, I could see the distant snow caps of the famous Alps.



Before that we had to get something settled, our next location. We are suppose to get to Milano but due the lack of train tickets and unhelpful French staff, we got the next best thing by changing our itinerary a bit and get to Innsbruck first.

We found out we can get tickets straight to Rome. Overnight too. Decided to take that as instead of just 4 hours, we could spend more time in Innsbruck. One major problem, our hostel in Milano is already booked for the night. Next up, I am going to introduce to you one of the most "in-bar" things a traveller could have. A internet and call shop. It is so cheap! :) After phoning the hostel up, we managed to change our dates for stay and it helped that the lady over the other side speaks Chinese! :) See! China is taking over the world. They are practically everywhere.

Our exploration of Innsbruck starts, or rather mine as Chapman had been here twice already. He is just back for the goulash soup. :p

There was not much people in sight. As we moved towards the tourist attractions, there were a tad more people, like… Simpang on a weekday 3pm. Haha. And of course we set our eyes on the fabled Golden Roof...



One point to note: There seems to be a lot of more asian tour groups than european or even american ones. Japanese ones are very common and Singaporean ones are normally at the more common locations. Singaporean are very distinct, if you know what I mean.

Made our way around and got to the cable car station. Was really excited! Chapman promised that the view was going to be amazing! Alas, the queue… again… Took a bit more time than expected but we got up. I have not words to describe this. I think my vocabulary is really not adequate to describe the beauty of the place… See for yourself…





After which we had lunch at the restaurant up the mountain, the famous goulash soup. As usual, it was packed… everywhere was packed… But the soup was good. :) And guess what? There were people sky gliding! So cool! :)
We went to the Alpine Zoo. It was really small. With only a total of 150 species of animals and plants, I took about an hour to finish the whole place and that is with all the uphill and upslopes. :)

We lazed at the square of the St. Anne's column for a while and spent about 4 hours at a bistro watching movies and using the laptops. After which was an overnight train again. But this time, to Rome - Italy!