You Me and Tuscany: Innsbruck, Austria

I've always loved The Sound of Music. I have memories of watching that film going back to before I was in kindergarten. I remember feeling inspired by Sister Maria's love of music and her desire for freedom and adventure... Her clumsiness and her "young at heart" personality is also something I feel like I can relate to (I sometimes feel like I'll never truly feel fully "grown up" :p). Along with my love for the inspiring story line, the setting of The Sound of Music always captivated me. Could there possibly such green rolling hills? Well in fact, yes! I saw them with my very own eyes this summer while we made our way up to Innsbruck, Austria (the actual setting of the movie is in Salzburg- just over an hour away from Innsbruck). I know this might sound cheesy, but they gave me goosebumps.

Just like our unexpected stop in Bari, Innsbruck was never a part of our original itinerary. After rearranging our schedule a bit to meet up with friends in Croatia, we had the (glorious) freedom of asking each other "where shall we go next?". This has to be one of the best feelings in the world. We were seriously considering the south coast of France (we went to the extent of finding accommodations in Nice), but after spending a good amount of time in Italy and Croatia we thought maybe we'd switch things up a bit. Though I'm sure Nice would have been nice (haha, I've been waiting to say that), instead of opting for beaches and warm weather, the mountains were calling. We had really enjoyed our time in Switzerland and knew we'd probably find ourselves feeling the same thing about Austria. And I'm happy to say, we were right about that! Despite the fact that it rained every day we were there and at times we felt like we were stuck in a thick cloud, we loved the town of Innsbruck. The train ride itself from Venice to Innsbruck was enough to satisfy our excitement for the mountains.

First of all, our hostel was absolutely adorable and the location could not have been better. Smack dab in the middle of the old historic district, Nepomuk's hostel was located above a cute little cafe that was known to be one of the oldest in town. Every morning the smell of buttery croissants and chocolate pastries would waft outside the front of the cafe. The hostel was run by the same owners as the cafe, so we were spoiled with breakfast every morning that consisted of some excellent freshly brewed coffee, juice, cereal, and freshly baked cakes or pastries (I try not to think of how many buns I've consumed on this Europe trip....). Since the weather wasn't great, we were limited on which hikes we could/wanted to do, so we opted for many of the lower trails that could be reached right from town. We would have loved to do some more serious climbing, but in the end we were quite content with a more relaxing time in Innsbruck. We treated ourselves to a typical Austrian meal of semmelknoedel in pilsrahmsoese and kaesespatz (no, I did not just make those words up. They were suggested to us by a girl we met at our hostel... I had her write them down for me, and when we went out for dinner I just showed the server what she wrote! I'm hopeless at speaking German). The first dish is sort of like a home made, baked macaroni and cheese (that was extremely heavy but delicious) and the second is a potato mushroom dumpling with a tomato and mushroom sauce. We split them both, and loved every bite. When we told the others at the hostel that we finished both dishes, they were in awe that we could eat so much. They must have not understood how much Zack can (deceivingly) pack away, and that I grew up with two brothers who ate even more than Zack (which is quite a lot). And if I consider how much walking we usually do in one day, it does not surprise me at all how much we can eat when a good meal is put in front of us (haha). Coming back from dinner that night, we just relaxed at the hostel. The dynamics with the other people we were staying with were probably one of the best we've had during our travels. We met two Austrian guys who seemed to also love to cook (we often found the four of us sharing the stove and eyeing each others dinners), a guy from Paris who gave us many suggestions of where to go once we get there, and a girl from Cambridge, England who we ended up chatting quite a bit with because of our plans to be living there soon. She was also a teacher like Zack, so we had lots to chat about. We had talked about how some of the most memorable times travelling are when you meet great people, and I couldn't agree more. We have crossed paths this summer with so many different travellers from all over the world. Some we have exchanged contact info with, and others we'll probably never hear from again, but either way, it has taught us how to relate and communicate better with many people of different cultures. That, I think, is a very valuable skill in life.

As you might be able to tell from the photos, it was fairly cold while we were here. Every once in a while the sun would peak out from the clouds, or the clouds would shift so that we could see a glimpse of the mountains around us. I'd love to come back to Austria one day and spend more than just a few days here so that we can take full advantage of the hiking and scenery. But for now, I'll continue with singing "the hills are alive, with The Sound of Music....."