Innsbruck - A city in the valley of three peaks

On our first day in Innsbruck, Austria we were just knackered (aka tired) after an early wakeup and really only 4 hours of sleep. It was really neat to walk out of the plane onto the tarmac and find ourselves in the middle of a valley with mountains surrounding us in EVERY direction!

To top it off, after we grabbed our bags we grabbed a city bus into the town (only a 15 minute ride) and it ended up being our cheapest airport transfer yet at 3.20 euro for both of us! We stayed at the Hilton again but had a consensus that the Hilton room/hotel amenities were better in Stockholm. ;o)

Because it was lunchtime we chose to walk around and find a bite to eat while seeing some cool city sites. There was an old town that had pedestrian streets (love those!) and very colourful facades on the sides of buildings, and colourful churches too! In the main cathedral called the 'Dom' the ceilings were completely ornate. So pretty, though a little overdone to be honest. hee hee. That night we went in the sauna of the hotel and went out for an early Austrian dinner in a cute 'gasthaus' in the old town. Syd had schnitzel and I had pan-fried potatoes with beef and bacon. Both very tasty, though a tad oily...
The next day we had a long 'lie-in' (aka sleep-in) and then went exploring again before catching a train to Solden for skiing. We checked out the ski lift from the 1976 olympics which involved a hike up a steep ravine. It was really cool though. Too bad the ski lift still isn't in operation. Neat to see though. It was a beautiful day for a hike with vistas overlooking the valley city and mountains.

The train ride and following bus ride to Solden was also majestic as it went up, up, up into the mountains. Snow eventually showed up during our northward journey and we got really pumped for our ski vacation.

Observations:
Easter is a big thing around here. Everywhere we go they have colourful eggs and bunnies in the shop windows, and hanging on trees in lobbies of restaurants and hotels. We went to to a cafe to have a cappucino after only 3 hours of sleep and some authentic Austrian pastries. Syd had an apfel struedel while I had a Krappfel, which is a sugar dusted doughnut with apricot paste inside - soooo good! Anyway, back to the easter thing, even in this little cafe they had little baskets on each table with colourful hard-boiled eggs and salt in the basket. Very strange....will people actually sit down and eat those, or is it just for show?...we didn't understand. Ah well, they looked cute in any case.