Visit Innsbruck, as Switzerland is too mainstream (and costly) !!
Shouting out our names, hearing it echoing from the top of Alps, making crazy faces with snow covered mountains in the backdrop and having that one snow ball war to decide who is the boss (well doesn’t matter who wins, there is only one boss) are the things that drove us to Innsbruck.
Initially, Switzerland was on the top of our travel list to experience all these activities, thanks to Bollywood which showed the country as a dream destination for such theme. However, what is not told in the movies is that Switzerland is quite expensive. So if you have got that 85K INR budget for your first Eurotrip, we suggest you to consider going to Innsbruck instead of any city in Switzerland, as it offers a similar theme with being lighter on your pocket. (Of course do keep Switzerland in your travel list for your subsequent Eurotrips as it has got its own charms)
For more pictures of Innsbruck, you can visit our Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/4eyedexperience/
Innsbruck details:
Innsbruck is a small city, surrounded by Alps from all the sides. While bus station and train station are at the center of the city, airport is a little far. Airport shuttles are available at fixed ticket price of 2.5 Euros. There are trams & buses to travel within the city, although most of the sight seeing spots are at walking distance and you may not need them. There is a connection of funiculars and cable cars to take you from city to the top of Alps in a break of three main stops. From city (Congress station) to an intermediate stop (visit the Alpine zoo here) you will go by a funicular which you can continue to stay boarded to reach to your first main stop, Hungerburg (panoramic views, artist houses). There you can make a change and board a cable car which takes you to the second stop, Seegrube. Take a break here for enjoying meal at a very picturesque restaurant, and it is really not expensive. Then board another cable car to go to the top most station, Hafelkar. Stop here to explore the snow covered Alps top. Don’t forget to take your covers and hard sole shoes to protect yourself from sub zero temperatures. Selfie stick at this spot can be helpful as you will be able to click pictures while wearing your hand gloves. The total charge for going from the city to top most station and then return back to city is 33 Euros. This ticket is valid for 24 hours and you can spend as much time as you want at each stop while going up or going down. These cable cars are operational from 8.30am to 5pm. More details on cable cars can be found here: www.nordkette.com/en/
Tip: Innsbruck 24 hour card is available at airport costing 39 Euros which covers transfer to and fro from airport, use of public transport, entry to all museums, ride on funicular and cable cars (one ascend and one descend, which costs 33 Euros as specified above) and hop on hop off bus usage. Really beneficial if you come as well as go from Innsbruck airport.
For staying, search for a Hotel or AirBnb flat at city center. Usual tariff is 4000INR per night. Try your luck at Hilton or Ibis website, you might get lucky in off season to get a room there within INR 4000 range.
For food, options like Subway, McDonalds and Pizzas are available at the city center for budget travelers. For shopping souvenirs, you will find amazing hand made artifact, puppets, the famous DDLJ bell and their cultural dresses (Drindl) at the local shops.
While we will be telling you our one day experience at Innsbruck, we would like to share this link for more details about the city history, what to see and what to do, to plan your trip as per your interest: https://www.innsbruck.info/en/
Our Experience:
We took a flight from Amsterdam to Innsbruck @2200 INR per person (internal flights in Schengen area are really cheap) and reached there in the afternoon @3pm. We took 24 hours pass and took the airport shuttle to go to the city. After getting refreshed at our hotel we went out to explore Innsbruck. Since we didn’t have much time left in the evening to go to the top of Alps that day, we decided to roam in the city. Walking across the lanes of the city, seeing artistic buildings with Alps in the background, shopping artistic handmade souveniers and clicking pictures at every beautiful corner is all we did on the first day. Key sightseeing spots, The Golden Roof, Maria Theresian StraBe, Triumphforte etc. and museums are all at walking distance from city center, most of which we covered by 9pm and had our dinner at Subway. Note that the shops for souvenirs and other stuff are open only till 7.30pm, so make sure you finish your shopping before that.
The next day we planned to go to the top of the Alps, prime reason for visiting Innsbruck. We decided to go all the way to the top and then stop at each station while descending down. The breathtaking view that we experienced on the top of Hafelkar left us mesmerized. We trekked a little bit around, kept wondering about how beautiful nature can be and also took few 100 pictures. Unfortunately our jackets were not warm enough to keep us there for more than half an hour and we descended to our next stop, Seegrube. We had a hot Chocolate at the Seegrube restaurant which we highly recommend you to have. The feeling of sipping a hot drink in sub zero temperatures with a panoramic city view in front of you, cannot be described in words at all. Seegrube also offers a perfect spot to watch the Skiers performing various stunts. After spending an hour there, we decided to descend to Hungerburg and then back to the city.
All in all, we felt that we covered almost everything that we intended to do in Innsbruck in one day time. We did miss out on few spots like the Swarowski crystal museum, trek to near by villages and some local cultural experiences, but in a short span of time that is all we could have done. Prioritising the things to do surely helps to manage your time effectively when you travel to new places.
Afterwards, we got our lunch packed and boarded the train at 2pm which took us to our next destination,Venice😎
For more details or queries about Innsbruck, feel free to email us at 4eyedexperience@gmail.com.
