Breakfast was pretty standard –
bread, jam, cold cereal with milk, meat/cheese, and fruit. Their
jams were delicious as well and everyone enjoyed the hot chocolate at
each table which – especially on the first day – was much better
than the coffee. With each subsequent morning, the coffee did get
better. Since Paris, sweetener was getting more and more rare and
only table sugar was offered for coffee. I
had picked up a small container with sweetener at the grocery store
the day before – sweetener in Europe comes in small tablets.
We actually
got to “sleep in” this morning – breakfast was at 8 am and then
we boarded the buses to head off to Innsbruck. Our first stop was
the Wilten Basilica which was, by far, my favorite church –
decorated in the Rococo style which is almost garish but so so
beautiful. The choir sang a few songs in this basilica and then we
re-boarded the buses for more touring. I had to chuckle at the “sing
and run” sort of approach taken this morning – it wasn't the last
time, either.
We had a short stop at a ski jump
where we walked up the hill to see the site of the 1964 and 1972
Olympics. There were bathrooms at the bottom of the hill but the
bathrooms at the top of the hill were free. Near the foot of the ski
jump was a pretty sizable cemetery and, of course, all sorts of jokes
about missing a jump and ending up in the cemetery. We were told
that even during the summer, the green turf was sprayed with water
and that there would be people ski jumping but there were none to be
found this morning.
We continued on into Innsbruck and
the buses dropped us off near the Golden Roof – the city's most
famous landmark structure with its copper tiles (not gold) built by
Emperor Maximilian I. From here they walked us over to the Swarovski
store and dropped us off – we were to meet back at the Golden Roof
at around 12:15 pm.
We shopped for a bit in the Swarovski store – the crystal items
were really beautiful but pricey and then wandered down the street
doing a little shopping and then stopping in a cafe for a snack as we
had decided ahead of time that we would wait to have lunch when we
arrived back into Seefeld.
We had to look up a few words in a
German dictionary online for some things but managed to bumble our
way through ordering some pastries and coffee. The tricky thing
about coffee in Austria is that there is no coffee – only
variations on coffee. I actually had to Google it to be able to
figure out what I wanted and settled on a Verlangerter which was,
from what I could figure out, the closest to an Americano.
We met up with our bus group back at
the Golden Roof and got back to Seefeld at around 1:15 pm. We walked
around a bit examining a few menus before settling on a nearby
restaurant for lunch where I got to try the Winerschnitzel vom
Schwein (“Vienna style”) and fries. The pork escalope was
accompanied by a bit of cranberry sauce and was quite good. Seth's
beef goulash with spatzle was also really good. Amina had the
“Garnished Sauerkraut” which was a ton of food and just ok. The
sauerkraut wasn't as sour as it seems to be in the states.
We stopped by the grocery store
again after lunch and picked up a bunch of snacks for the road to
Venice tomorrow where we were told that there would be no dinner but
bratwurst would be available when we got back around 11 pm. We
picked up some cookies, salami sticks, beef sticks, raisin rolls, and
nougat. Amina also did a little shoe shopping and picked up a pair
of really nice all-leather shoes that looked like basketball
sneakers.
Seth went back to the hotel for a
nap but we had a few hours before the concert – the band was
playing in the park at 5 pm, so I went for a run and ended up running
around Lake Wildsee 3 times for about 5 miles – the weather was
perfect for a run – 60's F, overcast, no wind, occasional light
drizzle. The scenery really was just like out of the movie “The
Sound of Music”.
All along the path, I kept wondering to myself how people could walk their dogs along the path and let them poop so much on it. On my 2nd lap around the lake, I noticed that these weren't pieces of dog poop on the trail that I was dodging but, in fact, huge slugs making their way across the path.
The band concert started up just as I got back
from my run so I watched for a bit and then went back to the hotel to
take a shower in that teeny tiny shower with no curtain.
Dinner was at 7 pm and we started
with some kind of soup that was good followed by salad and….lo and
behold, wienerschnitzel again which was delicious. Dessert was ice
cream.
The choir sang in the St Oswald church at 9 pm and, surprisingly, the church really was packed full of people. We headed off to bed back at the hotel around 10:30 pm.
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