Innsbruck
Our accommodation turned out to be somewhat inconveniently outside the town itself and up the mountain from Innsbruck. Every cloud has a silver lining, however, and the Innsbruck bobsledding/lugeing/skeleton track was only a stone’s throw from our room so we got to watch the USA youth luge team compete in the Junior World Cup. This was the closest I’ve come to real live luging besides watching the Winter Olympics on TV. It was a thrill to see the action in person (for the .01 seconds they screamed by.)
Aside from the extreme sports, Innsbruck is a very laid back mountain town. We experienced yet another brilliant Christmas market, a funicular up to great views, some award wining ski jump architecture by Iraqi Zaha Hadid, and the charming little town center.
On the bus back from town we witnessed yet another strange European holiday tradition. Five or six giant characters covered head to toe with thick masses of hair were waiting for all the students on our bus at their stop. When they got off the monsters wearing crazy masks and actual animal horns mercilessly whipped them on the ankles with tree branches. They even hit girls who, although they were laughing, didn’t waste any time running away. Proof that this wasn’t just an isolated incident or a glühwein-induced hallucination can be found by checking out our buddy Andrew Vickers’ similar testimony.
Although we could pretty much tell it was a joke or tradition of some kind, it didn’t get Lauren and I too excited about the following 20 minute hike from the last bus stop to our hotel through the pitch black forest with only the light of my cell phone.
Tags: Travel
seanaboots
December 11th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Sean, I really liked Innsbruck. We saw a couple of very nice churches, ate at the two story Mac Donald’s. We had a student(grad) to guide us around. Can’t imagine how you got through all the snow. It was snowing there in May 2000.
Bet the train ride there is very exciting. Those are some mountains, with beautiful lakes and rivers.