We arrived to the Vienna Airport shortly before midnight feeling very hungry, uncomfortable and disoriented from our 6-hour flight on W!ZZ Air (an airline not worth mentioning except to encourage you NOT to book one of its flights if at all possible). From the airport, we drove through the night on a much-smaller-than-anticipated coach bus driven by a rather suspect driver. I did on multiple occasions consider that my life might end in that bus, but finally awoke to the sunrise of a gorgeous day rising over the snow-capped mountains. Truly a majestic experience and our early morning arrival to the Landessportcenter in Innsbruck was a literal breath of fresh mountain air!

I had definitely enjoyed our first three weeks of travel and all of the beautiful cultural experiences we had in England, India and Oman. But man oh man did I LOVE our few-day stay in Innsbruck.

Apparently, I hardly left the hostel (located within the Olympic training facilities in Innsbruck) when I first visited in 2011. The students on this trip kept asking for recommendations and I had none. I could hardly remember the stay, which is now unbelievable. Innsbruck is an unforgettable destination!

Nestled into the center of multiple mountain ranges, the small city is a top destination for both summer and winter activities (as described to us by a representative from the office of tourism). The students once again were in classes most every day, which meant that I had time to explore the city, a task I enjoyed heartily after weeks of being shuttled around en masse.

The walk from the Landessportcenter (these accommodations are more basic than basic, but the views, the breakfast and the cost outweigh the shortcomings) to the heart of the city was a very lovely 25-minute jaunt that included plenty of gardens, views of the Olympic ski jump, turns by the Sill River, and plenty of restaurants and cafés.

Even in the middle of summer, the weather was moderate (most mornings and evenings I found a sweatshirt to be helpful). People were friendly (even in the tourist areas), the buildings were painted in lovely soft shades of color, very small children utilized the bus system (although I had trouble on multipole occasions), the food was delicious and not extremely pricey, and the view of mountains on all sides was a dream—in short, Innsbruck is basically perfect! I kept texting my friends and family about how badly I wanted them to be sharing the experience with me.

From somehow being forgettable to becoming a top highlight of my international travels, Innsbruck is absolutely a destination to which I will return!

The Highlights

Manner wafer cookies. Clean laundry. Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum (Tirolian folk museum). Hofkirche. Strudel. St. Jacob’s Dome. Gelato (almost every day). Top of Innsbruck (by way of a hike, funicular & cable car). Hofburg (Imperial Palace). Ferdinandum (cool museum of art, kind of about art. There was a smell exhibit (each room featured different scents), a conservation exhibit (where I found a new favorite artist—Rachel Ruysch), a room of pianos and other interesting pieces on display). Lunch on the side of a mountain. Aldi grocery shopping. Eiskaffe (gelato in iced coffee). Spaetzle. Stadtturm (city tower you can climb for great views). Street art. Currywurst. Riedel glass company tour.

The Remarkable

After our rousing information session with the tourism office rep, many of the students and I bought Innsbruck city passes to use on the days off. Lots of large cities now offer similar passes that save money on individual excursions and entrance fees by combining them for a lump sum. I felt that the value offered was very high in Innsbruck. There were so many museums (including a few outside of town like the Swarovski headquarters and the Ambras Castle), plus experiences like taking the Nordkette funicular/cable car to the peak of Hafelekar (a mountain 7,600 feet in elevation).

Summitting was slightly confusing as there were ways to hike up the mountain as well as a few cable car stops to get on. I led most of the students through a meandering hike (many thanks to Google Maps for not losing signal) past the Alpine Zoo (which is one of the stops, but we didn’t realize it at the time). Eventually, we boarded at the Hungerburg station and took a swift ride up the mountain. At the Seegrube station (where we later returned for a very picturesque lunch), we changed cable cars for a shorter ride to the “Top of Innsbruck.” Very fortunately, no students fell off the side of the mountain (legitimately one of my fears) and no one got altitude sickness (a relative feat given our elevation). That afternoon will live in my brain forever as a highlight of amazement at how big the world is and how great of a Creator God is!

SDG

p.s. Wondering the context of this visit to Innsbruck, Austria? This was one of the nine countries visited on the 2023 International Business Institute, for which I was the program assistant. Interested in learning more? Read about my own undergraduate experience on the trip when I participated in 2011.

LMB #9