Innsbruck, Austria: Cool buildings, jetlagged family

After we arrived at our hotel in Innsbruck, Dan, Juno, and James were ready to rest. James didn't actually tell us because he was out cold immediately, but Dan and Juno declined to head out into the city with Maya and me. Maya is an Olympic sleeper, so she was ready to go after sleeping on both planes and the car. We decided that we would spend a few hours walking around and would get dinner along the way. 

Maya and I were so excited to check out the  "old town" or Altstadt. Nestled in the Alps, the city is beautiful - the architecture is super colorful, there's lots of cool history, and everything is really clean with such care put into the flowers and landscaping. It was bustling with people just enjoying their Sunday. We did notice many people were eating gelato, so we made it a mission to seek out some after dinner.

 

We saw the "Golden Roof" - Goldenes Dachl which is an iconic landmark in Innsbruck. Completed in 1500, the roof was decorated with 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles for Emperor Maximilian I to mark his wedding to Bianca Maria Sforza. The Emperor and his wife used the balcony to observe festivals, tournaments, and other events that took place in the square below. Maya and I thought it was really sparkly.

We also saw the Dom St Jakob which was built between 1717 and 1724 on the site of a 12th century Romanesque Church. It was heavily damaged in WWII, but has been fully restored.

We even bumbled into a market area that reminded me of the Christmas markets (just warmer). There were lots of food and beer vendors as well as stalls selling trinkets and live Austrian music.

After walking around for a while, we decided it was time to eat, so we settled on a restaurant called Mama Mia's and ordered pizza. It was SO delicious. We may end up living off of pizza for the whole time we are in Europe. Although we did feel badly that the rest of our crew was missing this because they were back at the hotel sleeping.

Of course, we needed to complete our mission for gelato and that totally hit the spot!

We wandered around a little bit more while we ate our ice cream and then headed back to our hotel. On our way back a little after 8pm, we ran into Dan and Juno who had rallied their energy to get some food so we steered them towards the market for crepes and wurst. They ended up getting pizza and crepes. When they got home, they tried to tell James they had brought back pizza for him, but not even good food could wake the boy!

It did not take long before Maya and I were out cold like James. Hopefully, we'll all be on local time tomorrow so we can hit the ground running for the Lagazuoi Tunnels via ferrata.