Ruetz and Innsbruck Equal Good Times!

Nordkette/North Chain (Jewel of the Alps)

After visiting the home of Mozart we were headed to Innsbruck, the Capital of the Alps. The trip by the train only took a little over two hours. My first impression was.. what a lovely place! It was the first time in a few days that we felt a slight drop in the temperature (12-15 C) and we just loved it! After all, we finally got to use some of our warmer, meant-for-Autumn weather clothes. The view of the Alps welcomed us as we walked towards our hotel Nala, which was a mere nine-minute walk from the train station.

Our arrival at our hotel was around 1:30 in the afternoon and they let us check in right away. To our surprise, they gave us a room upgrade for free. The room that we originally booked was already quite a bargain at around 120 Euros a night, and the nice gesture of the upgrade was much appreciated!

Ruetz sandwiches. This is just one small section of the entire selection.

Innsbruck Card is a thing worth considering if you plan to visit many of its attractions, including the funicular and cable car ride up to the Nordkette AKA the Jewel of the Alps. We got a 72-hr pass priced at 58 Euros each. It's more than we paid in Salzburg, but given the more expensive admissions to Innsbruck's museums and rides to the Alps the card is well worth it.

We had lunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant called Teppan Work downtown Innsbruck. Didn't expect authentic Chinese food here but overall it was alright. We only had 25 minutes to eat as the restaurant was just about to finish its lunch hour at 2:30 pm.

Innsbruck on Sunday morning

We hit Hofburg Innsbruck late afternoon. It is a former palace and considered one of the three most important cultural buildings in Austria. The other two are Hofburg Vienna and SchonBrunn Palace, both located in Vienna. Nothing spectacular but I found paintings of aristocrats from the era (16th and 17th centuries) quite interesting. Makes me wonder how inflated they were, in terms of facial features of the persons portrayed.

Little hike up at the Alps

The first full day in Innsbruck was exciting as we scheduled ourselves to take the cable car up to Nordkette (Jewel of the Alps). The view up at the Alps and down overlooking Innsbruck was insanely beautiful. We were 7400 ft above the ground and the sensation of being up there was quite something. It was cold and windy but the stunning view at the top  was worth the journey.

Schloss Ambrass complex

Inside the Schloss Ambrass

Crystal exhibit at Crystal World

Swarovski Crystal World was our second excursion of the day. It was one attraction I had no prior notion about. It was beaming, colorful, involved outside the box kind of 

imagination. I didn't expect a lot of colors in the exhibits but apparently there's so much that you can create out of crystal. There were lots of refreshing ideas and I must say that some of them were unusual and a bit crazy.

Inside Kai

One thing that I was impressed when in Innsbruck was that we were able to find an authentic Japanese restaurant. This restaurant, Kai, is located on Blasius-Hueber-Str. Reservations are highly recommended but we were lucky enough to get a table walking in to the restaurant 15 minutes after they were open for dinner. Food was excellent. We both ordered chicken teriyaki, some some sushi rolls (California and cucumber rolls). The tab came out around 47 Euros.

War attire exhibits at Schloss Ambrass

We took a hop on hop off bus on our last full day in Innsbruck. Schloss Ambrass (a palace) and Tyrol Panorama were two attractions that we hopped off for. By the time we hit Tyrol Panorama I was too starving to go into the museum to check out the 360 degree view of some battle. Forgot the name of the battle, obviously. Pardon me! But Schloss Ambrass was a pretty cool museum/palace/park to visit. I enjoyed the walk around the palace complex with the leaves lying around the ground. It gave the dramatic effects that reminded me that Autumn's finally here.

Ruetz mug!

Now that Innsbruck days are behind me, there is one thing I really miss: daily trip to Ruetz! It's a coffee shop that offers a variety of sandwiches, breads, and pastries. Their hot cocoa was our favorite drink either at breakfast or any time of the day. The shop is brightly lit with yellow and white being the dominant colors. Very chic yet still classy! I even bought myself a Ruetz coffee cup to remind me of the fond memories I had there.

Hot cocoa break time at Ruetz!

Facade of a Ruetz at Innsbruck Old Town

A few things I continued to observe and have found to be interesting in Austria:

- all hotels we stayed at provide two individual duvets instead of one big duvet to share. Love it! No more hogging the big duvet!

- wifi is so easy to find in tourist attractions and most of the time no password is needed.

- people here are on the reserved side and keep their voice low in public places, e.g. in buses, trains etc. This won't be the case in the States.

- the underground/subway use is based off of the honor system, meaning you won't need to scan your ticket when entering the station. There won't be security officers checking for ticket either on the Vienna subway. The only time I had a person check my ticket was when we were on a bus in Salzburg.

After three nights in Innsbruck, we stayed one night in Linz then headed back to Vienna. I'll resume my report in the next post! Farewell Innsbruck, I will miss you and Ruetz mucho! 

Near Tyrol Panorama