This morning we're leaving Bamberg and making our way towards Innsbruck, Austria. We called a cab to the Schofield's home, loaded our bags, and took the 7-minute ride to the train station. It was easy! Six years ago we would have walked the 2 miles, hauling our bags through the city streets and wearing ourselves out in the process. It's nice to feel like you can afford the $10 cab fare, and I think that luxury is going to help preserve our legs and our patience.
We think we're going to miss Bamberg, but our stay felt like the appropriate amount of time. We grabbed a couple of our favorite goodies on the way out of town (Berliner donuts, a pretzel, and a couple of chocolate filled croissants). Those things, plus about 5 miles of walking per day, make for a healthy breakfast.
When we arrived at the Munich main station, we found our connecting train to Innsbruck, boarded it, then I went to take pictures while Sarah stayed with the luggage. Unfortunately, when I returned Sarah told me that she left her book on the train from Nuremberg. The most frustrating part was not that she left the book, but that she remembered with plenty of time and was unable to leave our bags to chase after it. I, too, would have gone after it, but we decided it wasn't worth missing our train. The tragedy (Sarah's words) of it is that she's dying to know how it ends! Good thing she packed 3 more books.
When we arrived in Innsbruck, it was as beautiful as we remembered: a baroque city settled into a river valley between two picturesque mountain ranges. We caught the D line city bus to the Schmelzergasse stop (don't worry, the jokes have been plentiful about this name...mostly at my expense) and hiked the remaining 1/2 mile to our B & B in the hills.
After getting settled, we hiked another mile up our road and caught the Hungerberg funicular to the Nordkette cable cars and ascended to the peak of a mountain. The views were AMAZING and the weather was phenomenal! I probably took 300 pictures. God's artistry is truly on display in this part of his creation.
We finished the evening early with dinner high upon the hillside, watching a thunderstorm appear over the mountains and travel over the NW part of Innsbruck. We finished taking the funicular down into the city and we walked around for a while enjoying the atmosphere of the old part of town. We even came across a pizza place I remembered from our first time here! Sarah promised me that we could come back tomorrow for a meal. Returning to our room, we spent time reading on our balcony over-looking the city and went to bed relatively early. Our sleep was great, with open windows letting in the cool mountain air. We love this place!