The Epic Ride Part V: Austria

On our way from Verona we had one last stop at an Italian motorway restaurant – complete with fantastic mountain views – and then it started cooling down, quite a bit. We decided to follow the signs to Innsbruck (thanks to the brochure) and by the time we got there it was absolutely pouring with rain. Luckily we found a tourist information office before we hit town – this had also happened in Inverness, Scotland, and it’s the best design ever. More towns should put their tourist office on the outskirts. There was a very helpful guy in the office who cheerfully told us the European Cup was on, it was in Vienna but there were games in Innsbruck so ‘everything’ was full. We could go to campsite X, he said, but we probably didn’t want to as he’d just sent all the Swiss supporters there and it would be full of hooligans. We could go to campsite Y but it’s quite small and yes, it’s still pouring rain. He made a call to a small hotel in town that had had a vacancy in the morning, and luckily it was still available so we booked it on the spot. Then he started showing us the map of the town and talking about all the things we could do. He was obviously very proud of Innsbruck and was certainly one of the most helpful people we came across. Of course, by the time we finally left the office the sun was out. Never mind we thought, a campsite full of hooligans doesn’t sound like our cup of tea anyway.

We did have some false starts but we found the hotel eventually, tucked into a tiny side street not far from the town centre. Innsbruck was a really lovely place, with mountains all over and some very pretty buildings. Once we were settled in our huge room with the two beds and 1970s bathroom full of smoked glass we went for a walk into town where things were quite busy. Austria was playing Germany that night so everyone was out and all the restaurants had TVs set up in the squares; there were also big TV screens at different points where we would have been happy to sit with a good Bavarian sausage and beer, but that didn’t really look possible. Once we’d had a good walk around we chose a very touristy place for dinner where we had an excellent spot for people-watching; I had the ‘dumpling’ plate which was exactly that – a collection of dumplings and sauces – and Toby had a decent enough schnitzel. Oh, and giant beers of course. It was a good night with the party atmosphere in town and all.

In the morning we had breakfast included so we ate a giant meal in a nice room full of footy fans. I do love those German style breakfasts, what with all that bread and cheese. We decided that instead of looking around Innsbruck much more we would visit Crystal Worlds which the guy in the office had told us about; essentially Swarovski’s gallery. Apparently it was the second most visited place in Austria. So off we went; of course it wasn’t as easy to find as we thought but once we got the GPS working it was fine. Crystal Worlds was out in a little village near Innsbruck, next to the Swarovski headquarters and surrounded by great mountain views. Great place to work. We didn’t really know what to expect and the entry fee was quite high but once we were in, we didn’t regret going at all. It was absolutely incredible, especially the first two galleries. Swarovski had basically commissioned a whole bunch of different artists to do things with crystals. The second gallery was like standing in a giant kaleidoscope; it was a really strange feeling. We had to keep moving quite quickly as the Austrian army was having an excursion and there were lots of young bald men in heavy boots tramping around. (I am still not sure why the army has excursions but I guess if anyone needs to learn to appreciate beauty and other abstract concepts, it’s probably defence personnel.) Toby overheard some silly American girls talking about how boring it all was and how they couldn’t believe they paid for it; I couldn’t believe someone would find something like that boring. They were probably not looking hard enough. After the galleries you got to look through the shop (of course) where I was tempted by many items but managed to resist. We ate in the restaurant too but like most gallery food it was too little for a lot of money.

After Crystal Worlds we had a choice between heading for Salzburg or the Alps; although I fully intend to visit Salzburg primarily to do the Sound of Music tour one day, it was in the opposite direction to where we wanted to end up and I didn’t feel like this was the trip to do it. So off to the Alps we went. We found a campsite in a cute little village nestled beneath an absolutely huge snow-capped mountain. We set up the tent next to a little creek and then on my way to the bathroom I ran into a man who started talking to me in what I think was German. I acted all confused and asked if he spoke English, which he did, and he asked me if we were the ones on the bike. I said we were and we chatted a bit about the Alps and what we were doing on our trip; he and his wife were there for three weeks from Belgium on a walking holiday. He had a very cute little dog with him too.

The man hung around us a fair bit over the next little while; he was very helpful in pointing out where we could find a supermarket (even though it still took us a long time to walk to the next little village) and chatting about where to explore next. We couldn’t quite figure out why he was spending so much time with us; he was a fair bit older and although he seemed to enjoy practising his English it was still a bit odd. Finally he asked Toby if he could see the bike, and it suddenly all made sense. He was a biker too! Toby took the cover off the bike and they went over it together and made various grunting noises at each other. It was nice to see that language is no barrier to secret men’s business.

We had a rather chilly night in our tent since we were not really prepared for camping in the Alps; we needed at least as much clothes as we had on Skye and a little more. Thank goodness for hot showers and cuddles. In the morning we said goodbye to our new friend and his dog, wished him luck for the rest of his walks, and headed off in search of the Romantische Strasse which was one of our main goals for the trip. We had been looking forward to the Fern Pass as it was meant to be a good ride (so the Belgian had told us) and although the scenery was magnificent, the traffic was very heavy so Toby couldn’t really get into the corners the way he likes to. But looking down into lush green valleys with perfectly blue lakes nestled in the floor was absolutely fantastic.