Day 12 A stopover in Innsbruck

From Trento on route north to Munich we once again pass through an amazing mountain range. We travel up through glacial valleys and every time the valley runs out we simply dive into a tunnel and eventually come out the other side, into another valley. Strangely a journey over the Brenner Pass from Italy into Austria has less bends than a train trip over the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. The scenery is exquisite.

We decide to break our journey with a four-hour visit to Innsbruck, Austria. After successfully leaving our packs in a railway locker we head into town for a few hours to explore this historic town, which also services a major alpine region. We ask a man at the tourist office for a map of the town but he dryly informs us that we are 900 years too late as Innsbruck has been a city since 1100 AD.  Innsbruck does not disappoint us and we see the major historical sites including the Golden Roof, which is actually made out of copper, and of course the magnificent St James Cathedral.

Our unexpected highlights are again gastronomical. Although we normally save money by making our own lunch, today we decide to splurge on a bought lunch.  We look for food that might be a local specialty. The fast food giant of the modern world McDonald’s is everywhere but we try to avoid this culinary weed. We find an amazing place called a Speckeria, which is a place that specializes in Speck. Speck is cold meat, mostly smoked ham, salami, prosciuto etc. We niggle our way into one of the five tables and order ‘One of those, please’ and point to a plate of speck. We know little about what we are ordering including the price. When our order arrives we are surprised at the size and variety of meats on the platter and yet somehow we manage to eat our way through the pile of ‘pig’. The price is only slightly more than a couple of Big Mac meal deals.

Later in the afternoon we decide we can’t leave town without a visit to a café and although we don’t really need to eat we find a café that has been in business since 1803. We order a couple of hot chocolates and apple strudel. The hot chocolates arrive as a glass of steaming frothed milk, with a bowl of whipped cream balanced on top of the glass and a separate scoop of solid chocolate, which we are to use to flavour our milk. The solid chocolate must have a low melting point as it melts easily in the hot milk. We have never tasted a finer hot chocolate. As for the strudel, well the apple is fresh, the pastry is light, it is not too sweet and the cream is whipped to perfection. And the price of all this is less than we would pay at home for two hot chocolates and a piece of dry brownie heated in the microwave at Gloria Jeans.

We expected Innsbruck to woo us with its magnificant snow covered mountains, which surround the town, but we did not expect such a fantastic lunch and delicious afternoon tea, which left us with no reason for dinner.