Having crossed some borders in the last week, my international vocabulary is under stress. I am getting tongue-tied, and have to make a conscious effort to remember which country I'm in. (I know, first world problem...)

I needn't worry, because the locals know instinctively that I am not one of them. I don't understand how. This morning I walked into our local Innsbruck cafe and the fraulein behind the counter immediately greeted me with 'Hello' before I could even assemble a guten morgen.

How did she know I was English? It's not like I was wearing a pinstripe suit and bowler hat and carrying a tightly-furled umbrella. I suspect they can just tell. I suspect if I walked in wearing lederhosen, braces and a Tyrolean hat with a feather sticking out of it and yodelled guten morgen she still would have said hello.

Which is a shame, since I had been rehearsing, 'Ich habe ein strudel und ein kaffe bitte' on my way there. I even knew, when she asked, which variety of strudel to point to and say 'Dies.' Which I did anyway, in defiance of her English greeting.

In a string of German faster than a turbocharged BMW she invited me to sit in the salon and she would bring das goodies to me. At least I think that's what she said, I have no idea, but it seemed logical. And indeed I was right; she arrived with a slice of strudel the size of Salzburg, a glass of iced water and a strong black coffee.

As I sat there I wished I knew how to say in German, 'That was perfect - you serve the best strudels in the world. Shame about the war thing.' Unfortunately there was no wifi for me to check my translation app, so I had to resort to telling her in German that I speak not well German, and in English praising the quality of the strudel. I didn't mention the war.

To which she strafed me with rapid-fire German which, I think, meant that my attempt was quite good and I needn't worry. In reality she probably said, 'Next time don't try and fool me, just wear the bowler hat.'

The forecast suggested a fine warm day, so Catherine and I decided to make the most of the sunshine and take the Hungerburg Cable Car to the dizzy heights of the Nordketten mountain range to the north. We could catch it from one of celebrated architect Zaha Hadid's amoeba-like stations beside the river. But first we had to visit the big i, the information centre, to enquire about tickets.

The frau there sold me a map and then, using a pen that seemed to ha no ink, circled various and sundry places of interest, including the base station for the Hungerburg Cable Car. And so, with full instructions and map marked in invisible ink we promptly got lost.

We saw a lot of Innsbruck most tourists probably don't see, until eventually, as the spring buds on the trees threatened to blossom, the daughter ran out of patience and asked a group of students at a bus stop if any spoke English, and where the hell was this futuristic station, or was it too far in the future to exist yet?

One of them reluctantly admitted to ein klein Englisch, and gesticulated towards Bavaria, with instructions to turn right und left. We left him being ribbed by his student mates, who were almost certainly accusing him of not k owing any English and making the whole thing up.

Anyway he was right. We found the station and boarded the first bit, a multi-jointed cable railway/funicular thing that is a masterpiece of engineering. On the flat it looks like an ordinary carriage, the sort you might catch to the airport, but as soon as it begins to climb it splits into three or four units to allow it to cope with the sudden incline. Ein klein wunder.

After a couple of futuristic station stops it reached the end of its line, where Miss C and I were drawn magnetically towards a cafe for lunch, and sat in the sun.

With a tummy-full of lasagne better than any we'd had in Italy last week I suggested we carry on, and so caught the actual cable car and ascended the mountain. I noticed it could hold 69+1 people (presumably meaning passenger plus pilot) to a maximum of five and a half tonnes, which was about hat I weighed after the lasagne.

With Innsbruck rapidly disappearing below we reached a sort of half-way base where we transferred to another cable car and continued the journey to the mountain top. The sun was out, the sky was blue... I could feel a song coming on, but instead Catherine suggested we trudge up the last couple of hundred feet of snow to the very top. I got half way and left her to it, but took the opportunity to photograph some majestic panoramas, as did she from the actual summit.

We stopped at one of the stations on the way down, discovered an ice cave, and a bar, and celebrated our mountaineering efforts. It was, in anyone's language, fantastic.