Innsbruck/Schruns, Austria

Author: Molly

We took a short train trip from Munich to Innsbruck, where we had 3 nights at a campground in a “barrel” which I was quite excited about.

Our “barrel” in the campround above Innsbruck

Our first day there, the weather was rainy so we went to a nearby monastary and caught a tour in German, nodding along like we understood of course.

Monastary in stams — Stams monastary, with a large tree of life statue

Wood inlay — The inlay on all the wood in the monastary was particularly nice

The next day we met up with our friends Eric and Thania, as well as Eric’s parents and Thania’s mom. It was fantastic to see them! Earlier this year we all visited Mexico which was a great trip, we felt very lucky to meet up in a second country this year. We explored the city of Innsbruck and walked through the Hofburg Palace (no pictures were allowed, unfortunately!)

Colorful buildings lining the river in Innsbruck

Our original plan following Innsbruck was to do a 3 night “hut to hut” hike. Tent camping is uncommon (and often illegal) here – instead, the alpine huts provide meals and mostly dormitory accommodations. We did this during our first Switzerland trip and it’s definitely part of the hiking experience in Europe.

However, we checked the weather and saw upcoming rain and a 30 degree temperature drop. We made a last minute decision to cancel the huts and book an apartment in a nearby town. This ended up to be a very good decision, as the Austrian alps received a “1 in 50 year” September snowfall during our planned hut days.

Cat in seefeld — Jon-David made a new friend, who crawled right up onto his lap

We had breakfast with Eric and Thania before catching the train up to Seefeld, which sits 2,000 ft. above Innsbruck. The apartment ended up being beautiful, with a nice kitchen and view of the mountains. We caught decent weather the first day and hiked through a gorge. The next day, the snow started to fall, so we decided to have a relaxing day. While this wasn’t our original plan, it ended up the perfect way to spend a few days.

Snow in seefeld — Snowy view from our apartment balcony

Our last stop was two nights in Schruns, a small town on the western side of Austria. We caught one day with beautiful weather and had a nice hike into the mountains above the town.

We enjoyed our first trip to Austria. The mountains are easily accessible but fairly quiet – though the weather may have contributed to that. Later in the trip, we will actually dip back into Austria to visit Vienna.