Innsbruck

View from Bridge Innsbruck was named after


Standing outside an apres-ski lounge


The view from the lounge


Inside the Swarovski Crystal Museum


View from the top of NordPark Mountain (Innsbruck city and surrounding mountains)



Wolves at the Alpine Zoo



This past weekend I traveled to Innsbruck with friends I've met here. Laura, Leah and Brett are all from Edmonton, Canada and we had a great time on our quick weekend trip to Innsbruck. We left Saturday morning at 7 am, arriving in Innsbruck sometime around noon and stayed until Sunday evening. Innsbruck is a small city of about 100,000 people in Western Austria. It's hosted the Winter Olympics twice and is surrounded by the relatively large Alps. These mountains provide great views of the city and surrounding countryside.

The first day we took a tram around the city and ended up seeing the Olympic ski jump and went up to one of the mountains in an attempt to go sledding. However, they were closing soon so we just sat at a cafe and enjoyed the view. We went out to dinner in the old city area connected by pedestrian walkways. We were all pretty tired so we decided to go to bed after we got back to the hotel.

The next day we went to the Swarovski Crystal museum, which was actually filled with cool artwork and had various outdoor activities. Next, we headed up a mountain on the other side of the city on the fenicular (railway up the steep mountainside) and caught a gondola to the top. The view from up here was absolutely amazing, and made me wish I had more time to go skiing. However, there was also the Alpine Zoo lower on the mountain that we actually toward around on our way down to the city. We then walked around and headed towards the bridge that the town actually got its name after and took some pictures of that area.

Almost everything we did, including the museums, fenicular, gondola, zoo, public transportation, etc. were all included in this Innsbruck card that we purchased for 30 euros and definitely saved us a lot of money. It was money well spent on an enjoyable two day journey.

Note: If you click on the pictures you'll see the full sized image if you'd like to download them and save them to your computer.

As always it's taking awhile for the photos to upload so i'll have the link up soon. However, if you click on the prague pictures link you'll see new photos that I was finally able to upload.

Prague

This past weekend we traveled to Prague on one of the school sponsored trips. We left on Friday morning at 7 am and took a 5 hour bus ride to arrive in Praha (Prague). What amazed me was that when driving into the Czech Republic was that there was no stop. I don't think I needed my passport the entire weekend.

We went on a few tours and saw tons of things throughout Prague, including:
Prague Castle



St. Vitus Cathedral



The Astronomical Clock



Charles Bridge



The Old Jewish Quarter



and the National Museum



One of the best things about Prague, was the food! The food there was absolutely amazing. Some of my favorite dishes include a traditional Czech potato soup and a chicken dish that was basically baked with cheese on top of it. Everytime I sat down for something to eat, I was satisfied. Another great part about Prague was how relatively inexpensive things were, including the beer. We were served 1 liter glasses of beer at one of the restaurants we went to for dinner, and of course had to order another. After a meal and 2 liters of beer we were all quite full, and struggled to get to the club; however, we pulled through and stayed out til 5 am that night.

The night scene in Prague was great. I mean that in a way that it fulfilled every stereotype you can assume about eastern Europe. While the drinks weren't that cheap, about everything else was quite interesting, from the 50 year old women and [creeper] men at the club to the cement floor with random tiles and the music straight out of the 80's and 90's. The second night we went to a club that was 5 floors. It was pretty cool, but at the same time, quite sketchy.

More Pictures: Click Here