This morning we had another very nice breakfast, then wandered a bit through the old town of Innsbruck. We saw the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof) built in 1494-1496 in remembrance of the marriage between Emperor Maximilian I and Bianca Maria Sforza. The roof has 3000 copper tiles plated in gold. The 3 story balcony was used as a royal box to sit in luxury to watch tournaments in the square below.
We visited the Hofkirche (Imperial Church), built 1553-1563, which houses the remains of Emperor Maximilian I himself. It is apparently the most famous emperor tomb memorial in all of Europe, and it was easy to see why. The whole interior of the church was taken up by the marble sarcophagus, which was flanked by 28 larger than life (8 feet tall) bronze statues of his ancestors. One of the statues was of King Arthur of England, supposedly an ancestor of Maxmilian I.
We walked around the old town narrow alleys with Baroque architecture, and it was all starting to be very familiar. We felt we had seen all of Innsbruck that we wanted to see, so we decided to catch the 10:36 train instead of the 12:13 train we had originally planned to take. We went to the bus stop, but the sign said the bus we needed would be another 10 minutes, and we would have missed our train. So we walked around the corner, found a taxi, and were at the train station with 5 minutes to spare.
We now know that even in first class, your tea and coffee is not free. But it is offered and brought to you, which it isn't in second class. We had a connection through Worgl, where we caught the next train. On this leg, the car labelled first class was actually a second class car, and we noticed a difference. The seats were more narrow, there was no table, no handy train schedule, and no garbage. Not sure why this is first class today. Maybe it's just the people we are with? Ha ha.
We were picked up at the train station and taken to the Grand Hotel, a wonderful hotel on the lake, where we had booked a room with a balcony overlooking the lake. It was the hotel we were looking forward to the most on our whole trip. At reception, we were greeted by the manager himself, who informed us that the hotel was booked solid, no room for us. However, they had a room in their sister hotel, the Salburgerhof Hotel, the only 5 star hotel in town. The manager walked us over and gave us a personal tour, and seemed very concerned that we were happy. Frankie played hard to please, and got us 2 free massages back at the Grand, ha ha. Really, this is a gorgeous hotel, much nicer than the Grand. It looks like a chalet and has flower boxes adorning every balcony on every level. Our room is a suite, with a separate living area. We have 2 balconies, one off the living area and one off the bedroom. We overlook nice gardens, with the sound of a waterfall. We think this is one of those "wellness" hotels.
We walked over to the Grand Hotel just to check it out, since we are allowed to use the facilities of both hotels. It is packed with Arab tourists from Dubai, one even had his souped up Mustang here with him. We took the paddle boat out onto the lake for awhile, the whole lake is surrounded by mountains. Beautiful. Then we walked through town, it didn't take long. There was one main pedestrian street with shops and restaurants, and then the main road. The walk along the lake is nice.
Back at the hotel, we tried to book parasailing for tomorrow, but everyone was full. Oh well. There is a zipline nearby called the Flying Fox XLL. They hook you up by your backside and you fly through the air like Superman, 1.5 km at 140 km/hr. Yikes! I think we'll stick to mountain climbing!
We changed into fancy grubs for dinner, it's such a fancy restaurant. The meal was 5 courses, yummy but tiny. We were serenaded by one of the best piano players we've ever heard, so smooth.
Dinner lasted 2 hours, and afterwards we headed back into town for "Zell Summer Night" which happens every Wednesday night, where the pedestrian street was so overrun by people we could hardly move. We weren't sure what all the excitement was about, all we saw were a few artists, someone cutting hair (on the street), some musicians, and some vendors. There was one really interesting guy on roller blades riding around on a one-wheeled motorcycle.
The walk through the crowded town was not quite our thing, so we headed back to the hotel and the dining room to listen to Mr. Piano Player. They brought us tea and we wrote the blog. Frankie may just have convinced Anton to take up an instrument next year!
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