Before we close the topic just a few more pictures.

Yesterday the rain stopped for a few hours and we went walking around Füssen, a small town of 14K people. Lost at the foot of the Alps in the Allgau region (Tirol).

It is a charming little town about 2000 years old which saw a Roman garrison in the first century establish itself there. It became a booming town when Ludwig II decided to start building his own castle. That brought Royalty from Russia and elsewhere to Füssen and suddenly this little sleepy village  was on par with Vienna, Paris and London. But because of the Via Claudia Augusta built by the Romans in Antiquity Füssen has always been on an important trade route, it is connected to Augsburg and Innsbruck.

Today millions of tourists come here every year to see the Castles.

Hohe Castle

 Monastery of St-Mang, the Patron Saint of Füssen since 900 AD.

 a drugstore on Via Claudia Augusta

 Fountain to Kaspar the luth maker and his family 1541.

 An old Church

The Baker's fountain 

Innsbruck, Tyrol Province, Austria

The weather is cloudy and snow flakes fall slowly from heaven like in a dream scene. Today we walked around the city, its a small town surrounded by the Alps, a beautiful mountain stream crosses the city, it is known for Olympic Skiing events, it has always been a important cross road in the Alps because the passes stay open all year long and are not blocked by snow. The Hapsburg dynasty purchased the Tyrol by fraud under Prince Rudolf 900 years ago, from that point on they continued to build and ruled for centuries of the great empires of Europe. They are still around and so are many of the institutions they created.

We visited the Tiroler VolksKunst Museum (Tirol Folk Museum) today, the Hofkirche and the Innsbruck Hofburg (church and Imperial Palace), all the exhibits are very well done and very interesting. Beautiful collections of Folk art and life, complete rooms or parlors with the famous porcelain stoves have been rebuilt inside the museum, they are all made of Ash, Oak and Pine wood, decorated with intricate carvings, the smell of wood still present, the rooms are 500 years old and give you a good idea of how life was then.

The Palace had one spectacular exhibition on Mountaineering in the Alps and the whole obsessions people have here with the mountains. There is also a special exhibit on water colours of the mountains and how artists used different hues to give the most authentic look at mountain scenes.

Look down any street and what do you see at the end of it, the Alps and eternal snow, majestic and domineering. This city is so peaceful and the people are very nice, we made some positive comments on the quality of the exhibits in the museums and the curators blushed and look all embarrassed. The city is very clean and tidy, people greet each other, its so civilized, it just puts you in a good mood. The Palace is devoted to the only women who ever ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Maria-Theresa, a force of nature, she had 16 kids, she had vision and was both a ruler and a mother, insisting her children should learn a trade, just in case. She became a widow at 48 years of age and continued to rule with an iron grip.

 HofKirche, with the mausoleum of Emperor Maximilian, (1459-1519) he put Innsbruck on the map. He is to this day much admired in the Tirol. The tomb was recently restored and is quite beautiful. He is surrounded by bronze statues larger than life of his ancestors.

Courtyard of the VolksKunst Museum with a dusting of snow. It was previously an Episcopal palace.

Architecture of the 15th century in Innsbruck. Massive stone buildings.

In the green facade building Leopold Mozart and his son Wolfgang A. gave a concert.

One of the hundreds of artifacts on exhibit in the VolksKunst Museum, a crèche with a Tirolean theme.

There are also lots of excellent restaurants, most menus are in German only, but not too worry everyone speaks English and the waiters are happy to translate for you.
  

From Padova to Verona on our way to Innsbruck

We had made reservations with OBB Austrian Federal Rail System to leave from Padova at 14:08 to go to Innsbruck. We got to the station on time only to discover that the train was not listed anywhere, the personnel from Train Italia could not help, they had no information.

Finally after insisting that there had to be a train, we had tickets, one Train Italia Official told us that, yes there was a bus to Verona with the sign OBB on it. So out the station we go and start looking for this bus, No bus, what to do, we decided to take a taxi to Verona, the distance is short about 55 min trip all together on the highway, the cost 160 Euros extra. Our taxi driver was doing about 220 km per hour.

Verona Porta Nuova Station standing by the DB car.

What a pain, nowhere on the OBB web site does it explain where the bus is etc. It also fails to tell you that the famous bus leaves Padova train station 30 minutes before the actual phantom train leaves. On the other hand the web site of DB, the German Rail system tells you this. You see the train is in fact the express that goes from Verona to Munich via Austria. But then why are the Germans more forthcoming with info than the Austrians? It’s probably cultural.

 Austrian OBB locomotive pulling a German DB train. Verona Station.

Anyway all this to say is that we missed our train departing Verona by minutes, because in the Verona Porta Nuova station, this train is not announced either.

The information desk will tell you that all German trains leave from Binario 1 or 3 and the representative of the other train systems is on Binario 1. You figure it out, dear client, don’t you love it, unresolved issues about moving borders from the First World War some 93 years ago.

So finally we boarded the last train at 16:59 and left promptly first stop is Rovereto, which is a small town in the Dolomite mountains, next lovely Trento, then beautiful Bolzano also known as Bozen, this was part of Austria until 1918, all great wine country of the Alto Adige or Süd Tirol. On to

Bressanone or Brixen, Fortezza or Franzensfeste, the famous Brenner Pass which is the border between Italy and Austria way up in the Dolomites and steps away from the Alps and finally Innsbruck. We will arrive at 20:30 some 2 hours late. The unfortunate part is that we missed going through the mountains in daylight as planned, which is very picturesque at this time of year with all the snow high up in the Austrian Alps.  

Strangely enough our train has no restaurant car, no bar car, nothing to eat or drink, snack's are advertised and the prices of food and drinks are the same as Canada’s Via Rail, is there a conspiracy here? Probably. I did ask the conductor about this situation given that the entire train ride, if we went all the way to Munich would take about 7 hours. The conductor apologized and said it was DB Rail management who had decided at the last minute not to provide anything given that the train was almost empty.  Still to me that is irresponsible and probably contrary to safety rules. 

When we got to Innsbruck, our hotel is just across the street from the train station, The Grand Hotel Europa is a wonderful hotel, impeccable service, the rooms are ultra modern, with lots of facilities. The hotel itself is more than 140 years old, but the owners have take great care to maintain it and done it with great care and good taste. See www.granhoteleuropa.at

What impressed us the most was that the next morning we sent out laundry to be done at 8 am, it was back in the room all neat and clean at 10am, I can honestly say that never in 45 years of traveling around the world have I ever seen this. 

We met friends on arrival last night and went to dinner at a wonderful Tapas Bar called TAPABAR on Marktplatz, see www.tapabar.at great food and excellent Spanish wines.