Sud Tyrol Roll Day 1 (8)

Day 1 (8): Luzern to Innsbruck, Austria-  Meet up with Suzanne and Rich

This morning we caught an early train to Innsbruck.  Rich and Suzanne were already there, having come in yesterday via Munich. I had an interesting coincidence on the train.  A young guy sat down net to us, and after spying his bike helmet, I struck up a conversation. He was a junior at Penn State studdying engineering.  After a brief walk down memory lane as an engineering student at Cornell, i mentioned that i became an oral surgeon. He then told me his grandfather was an oral surgeon in Middlebury, VT, John Carlson. This made his great uncle (his gradfather's twin)one of my chief residents, Bob Carlson! Very small world.

When we reached the Innsbruck train station, we were pleasantly surprised top have a welcoming committee.  Rich and Suzanne came to the station to help us with our luggage and direct us to the hotel.

After checking in, we did a walk-about around Innsbruck, sadly, in the rain.

We did manage to find some gelato to take some of the sting out of the bad weather.

One of the main attractions of Innsbruck is die Goldenes Dachl, the golden roof. The roof has 2,657 gilded copper shingles and was built for Emperor Maximilian I between 1497 and 1500. The city credits Nikolaus Türing the Elder as the master builder and relief-maker, while the frescoes are attributed to Maximilian’s court painter Jörg Kölderer. Its purpose was basically imperial theater: Maximilian and his court could stand in the balcony and watch tournaments, festivals, and public events in the square below

Street characters abounded even in the rain. This LOTR character was a big hit.

The main cathedral in Innsbruck is St. James’ Cathedral, usually called Dom zu St. Jakob in German, or simply Innsbrucker Dom.

The cathedral  is mostly Baroque, built between 1717 and 1724 after earlier earthquake damage in 1689. The church site is tied to the founding of Innsbruck, associated with a new market as an “ecclesia in foro” (a church in the market) on the bank of the Inn River around 1180. The first specific documentary mention of St. James’ Church in Innsbruck comes from 1270. 

In the main square, workmen were setting up a pole vault pit, of all things, with a major competition to be taking place tomorrow evening. Timing-

Runway fro the vault

Pole Vault Pit

One of the major draws of Innsbruck for me was that my dad spent time here during WW II. I'm not sure where he was, but it was neat just thinking about him at age 20 walking around the streets here.

For dinner, we went out for delicious Nepalese food. Our friends surprised us by treating us for our 51st anniversary! 

After dinner, we decided that since the weather was suppose to continue to be crappy in Innsbruck, and the Bolzano weather was looking much better we would try to leave Innsbruck on an earlier train tomorrow.  Though we had 1st class tickets with seats, the seats couldn't be transferred and there were no 1st class reservations available.  So, we elected to get 2nd class reserved seats so we could all sit together. 

Off tomorrow for yet another country.