22Apr2009: Day 331: Innsbruck, Austria

Remember how I mentioned a couple of days ago that with the new road system they closed off some of the exits? Well, it’s also a problem when you’re trying to get back on them and the GPS has no idea but to send you down these routes of which one is a dead end. After the third attempt, we finally found the highway and off we were to Innsbruck. It was only just over a few hours away but it took us longer as we stopped a couple of times to stretch and film the scenery.

There is just no comparing the beauty you see of these huge mountains with snow caps on some and houses that just seem random dotted along with no visible roads to them. Plus rows and rows of what I believe are grape vines, and occasional castles and churches on the mountainsides. It truly just makes you appreciate God’s sense of beauty and nature. I wonder if the people who live in these areas truly appreciate what they have. They probably don’t care for it in the winter I would assume but today was just so warm and sunny out, yet cool at the same time. I could’ve lain out to get a suntan it just felt so good. One thing that has also been interesting to see is how the roads are just “S” curve after “S” curve with short bursts of straight road, and tunnels sprinkled throughout. Plus it always seems as though we’re going down hill, hardly ever up.

We finally got to Innsbruck about 2:30ish and found a place to park and headed straight for a couple of churches. These were very different from a lot of the ones we’ve seen as they were well lit and airy, not dark and dismal. The only thing was that you could only peer through a gate. They weren’t open to walk around in. The first one was Stift Wilten as seen here:

Then this one that was right across the street called Basilika Wilten:

We then headed more into town and found another place to park and walked to another church, as we thought it was the Dom Zu St. Jakob (Cathedral of James) but it ended up being another church called Jesuitenkirche which is on the site of the university which was founded by the Jesuits in 1699. After taking a few pictures inside, we walked on and found the tourist area and the Dom Zu St. Jakob (collage below). This church had something inside I’ve never seen and don’t know if I can explain as I have no idea what in the world it was. It was up front and from a distance looked like a tree that was rotting away. When you got closer, it looked as if the top had wax melted on it but the bottom base it was in was wet looking as if this thing was moulting or “bleeding” water. We think maybe it was a strange candle holder but can’t explain the base with water (not water to extinguish hot wax either).

When we left, there was an area just outside with flowers and a fountain. Makenna fed some birds her crackers that she didn’t want and then she saw the fountain. Makenna is a magnet for water if I haven’t already said in the past, and she went over to it. She decided to pick a flower and throw it in the water. I have no idea what ever gave her the idea to do it. I made sure she didn’t pick any more as she wanted to. I think she just wanted to put something in the water.

We stopped at various stores and bought a little horse ornament, a magnet, some candy, and Chris bought a Stein. It was hard to pass up buying a cuckoo clock and even harder to pass up buying this cute little Bavarian dress for Makenna. It was over 80 Euros though and considering she’d only wear it a few times I just couldn’t do it.

While we were in the store, Makenna was looking at a little trinket and she said, “Oh, that’s so pretty.” It’s as if every day she’s picking up phrases and applying them at appropriate times, it’s just amazing to me. Another thing she did today was while she was on Chris’s shoulders, she was sticking her fingers in his ear and he said, “Don’t stick your fingers in daddy’s ear.” She then said, “eeh ah – eeh ah” as if she was a donkey. Chris said, “Did she just make the noise of a donkey at me?” I told him yes and we both started laughing.

We took pictures of different interesting architecture, fountains and buildings we found as we were walking around. We stopped for a sandwich of some sort of salami on a roll. Makenna – chicken nuggets from McDonalds. She better enjoy all these nuggets now because I am not one to stop at fast food places when we’re in the states except for Subway or Wendy’s. I’m already thinking about ways I might be able to cook chicken nuggets at home to make them healthier.

We walked around a bit more then headed to the car and off to our hotel which was another 1.45 away. We luckily didn’t have any issues finding the hotel and this place had a pool. We took advantage of it and Chris finally got to see how well Makenna does in swimming. The pool wasn’t too heated which was quite a shock to me when I jumped right in.

Makenna enjoyed jumping in, swimming back and forth between Chris and I, and us throwing her back and forth in the water. She wasn’t too willing to go under but did a few times. She thought it was funny to see Chris swimming under water at her.

What was nice was that they had separate dressing/locker rooms down here so we could just bring all our stuff down and change. Plus they had a shelf full of towels so it didn’t matter if we used a couple. After we were done swimming, I went over to the shower area to rinse off the chlorine and Chris did the same while Makenna just stayed off to the side. Well, this guy who was down at the pool area with his buddies came over near the showers to go into the sauna and he stripped off his bathing suit! My mouth dropped open and I was looking at Chris and mouthing, “What is he doing?!?!” I only saw his butt in all honesty but still. I was shocked he’d do that with me there but more shocked with Makenna standing there. I don’t think Makenna saw anything as she was turned the other way waiting to go into the locker room with me. Chris said he heard his buddies laughing when he went into the sauna. Well, that’s a way to end the night!