Austria is another beautiful European country that has a lot to offer. With lovely towns, cities and villages for one to explore. There are also scenic mountain tops, lake side villages and quaint cities like Innsbruck. While planning our Europe trip, Austria was one of the countries we were eager to visit and the Eurail Global Pass for train travel made the trip that much easier. As we had chosen Zurich as our base city, it had a direct train connection with Zurich of three and a half hours. Plus on this route, there were no compulsory reservations required! This made it perfect to see a new city and at the same time add another country to our list! We set off on the 8:40 AM train and reached there at around 12 PM. The best thing about Innsbruck was that the city center was close to the main station so we could walk and explore the city without the need for public transport.
We first headed to eat something at Vitrine Imbiss. This was a small local joint that had some interesting vegetarian wraps and sandwiches. The food was fresh but needed a bit more flavor for our Indian palette. However the company of the extremely nice owner who had so many stories to tell about the time he visited India and his fond memories from there, more than made up for it. He also recommended we try the local cola drink called Tirol Cola which tasted so similar to Coke!
We then headed through the Triumphforte arch towards the city center. We encountered cloudy weather here but it didn't deter us much as we had carried umbrellas. We walked along Maria-Theresien Strabe (one of the notable streets) to reach the old town area and the beautiful St Anne's Column. On a sunny day, I am sure the view from here must be even more spectacular of the snow-capped mountains.
This area was vibrant and filled with colorful and beautifully designed townhouse-type short buildings. As we proceeded further down this street onto Herzog-Friedrich-Strabe, we were greeted by a narrow lane with more pretty houses and metallic old-world display signs peeking out from these buildings.
At the end of this street was the iconic Golden Roof, which is considered to be the city’s most famous symbol… some interesting trivia - this place was the backdrop in Tiger Zinda Hai’s famous song Dil Diyan Gallan with Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif…
After admiring the general splendor and charm of this area, we decided to have some dessert and what better than to do it at one of the famous cafes & konditories that Austria is so well known for?
We chose Studel Cafe Kroll to try out the popular Austrian strudel. This cafe was designed line cut out of a cave and was cozy and intimate. A wide variety of strudels on display confused us so we asked the server to surprise us with the set of 3 strudels as per his suggestions.
We liked the Apfelstrudel (apple strudel) which is usually what is suggested in guides with vanilla sauce, but the one that blew our minds was the Topfenstrudel (sweet ricotta cheese strudel). Along with that we also tried Einspänner, a popular Viennese coffee concoction of espresso topped with generous amounts of whipped cream (yum!). I should say that the strudel did not have a crispy pastry layer and was a little soggy, but the filling more than made up for it and so did the excellent service. We even ordered seconds!
After having had some great dessert and coffee, we headed to just view the Hofkirche (popular Gothic church) and the area around it. Then we headed to the riverside area and stood on the famous bridge Innbrucke. This had some beautiful architecture surrounding it and also colorful houses on one side. There were also some great mountain views from here but would have been better if it was not raining.
We reached back to the main station around half an hour before our train, to just explore the same and pick up some snacks for our train ride back. Over there I got the chance to try another famous bakery at Innsbruck called Der Backer Ruetz. I got the Butterbreze (butter-filled pretzel) and it was so delicious. We also got a sandwich from Le Crobag which was just OK. Along with that as technically we were in a new country we also picked up a local Lays chips to try out called Krauterbutter Lays (herbs and butter - yum).
There were other things that could be done in Innsbruck from the top of Innsbruck to the Swarowski Museum. We found it to be the perfect day just exploring at our leisure this picture-perfect European city.
Innsbruck is the perfect destination for a day trip, with so many things to see and do just exploring by foot. I hope you liked my post. Thank you for reading❤️
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