Some time around 2010 a friend of mine was explaining his Eurotrip and mentioned going canyoning in Interlaken, Switzerland. I'd never heard of it. You apparently throw on a wetsuit and helmet and throw yourself off of cliffs, under waterfalls, over waterfalls, between rocks, and other things in rivers/streams in mountains.
It sounded incredible.
I regretted not finding a way to do it when I visited Europe in 2012, but planned to find a way eventually. So for my 28th birthday, Jenna agreed to humor me and give this a try. We contacted my Austrian cousin Norbert (who is a bit of a thrill-seeker) and tried to match our schedules so he could join. Unfortunately, while Interlaken was a few hours from us, it was about a 12 hour drive for him, so we'd have to look somewhere else.
Norbert knew Austria well enough to know that we could find a place near Innsbruck, and so we met him there for a 36 hour stay in the home of both the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics.
For our part, we took a 5 hour train from Milan which proved to be exceptionally beautiful. We weaved between mountains as the terrain kept climbing and climbing. We stared wide-eyed for hte entire way, marking down town-names of places we'd like to visit in the future, noting the bike-path that seemed to go for hundreds of miles along the Adige River in northern Italy. In short, it's picturesque, as you'll see in a later post.
We arrived in Innsbruck and were impressed, to put it lightly. Norbert met us virtually as we were arriving - couldn't have timed it better - and we hopped in his car and took a look around Innsbruck.
It is striking. It's in the valley between two sets of mountains, carved out by the River Inn (Bruck means bridge in German, so you can see how the city got its name), and each set of mountains is in the 8-10,000 foot range. We almost immediately decided to go up one side on a cable-car and look down across the valley. The cable car went up a thousand meters or so (packed with 50+ people) before letting us out and offering people the chance to trek the rest of the way to the peak.
We didn't. But we did look around, and it was, well, this.
After some wandering and staring, we descended and went to the other side of the valley to see their famous ski-jump from the Olympics. It was exactly what you might expect, but I can't say much beyond that because they wanted to charge something like 9 euros to get in and look at it closer. We declined.
Instead we went to the city center and had a stroll. It was, I'm told, a quaint and beautiful ski-resort-town in the center. I've not skied so I don't know, but it was really pretty. Fancy shops and nice restaurants, a historical pedestrian-only area, some very pretty old buildings, and the mountains looming over everything. But the river cutting through it puts everything else to shame. Example.
The three of us ended up having a nice dinner near the town square and retired to our hotel outside of the city, as we had an early morning coming.
We woke up very early to learn that both Jenna and Norbert had dreams about being injured or dying while canyoning, and I was about as excited as I'd ever been. The weather was cold, the water would be even colder, and I was on top of the world with nervous laughter and "I hope we don't get hypothermia" giggles.
We drove out of they city and through a tiny town full of outdoors-companies and parked to discover we were the only tour of the day. The three of us plus three German guys would make up the whole tour, and we'd bound along the canyon in our wetsuits for about three hours. It was 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
We piled into a van and took off through the woods and up a mountain. By the time we got out, we were pretty high up and seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
After the canyoning we drove back to the city for a few hours until Norbert had to head back toward Vienna. We had a train to catch in the early evening but had enough time to wander near the river a little bit more and see just why this place has such a reputation for being beautiful. It's because this place is always being beautiful.
If you find yourself in central Europe with some time to kill, particularly if you're a skier or a thrill-seeker or whatever, you can do a hell of a lot worse than Innsbruck. We were only there 36 hours, which was probably about as much as you really need - even though we didn't get to go in their big, well-reviewed museum - and we loved it.
Next up, Venice for a day-long trip in early October - the week after my birthday and a weekend which carries some other significance. Stay tuned.
It sounded incredible.
I regretted not finding a way to do it when I visited Europe in 2012, but planned to find a way eventually. So for my 28th birthday, Jenna agreed to humor me and give this a try. We contacted my Austrian cousin Norbert (who is a bit of a thrill-seeker) and tried to match our schedules so he could join. Unfortunately, while Interlaken was a few hours from us, it was about a 12 hour drive for him, so we'd have to look somewhere else.
Norbert knew Austria well enough to know that we could find a place near Innsbruck, and so we met him there for a 36 hour stay in the home of both the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics.
For our part, we took a 5 hour train from Milan which proved to be exceptionally beautiful. We weaved between mountains as the terrain kept climbing and climbing. We stared wide-eyed for hte entire way, marking down town-names of places we'd like to visit in the future, noting the bike-path that seemed to go for hundreds of miles along the Adige River in northern Italy. In short, it's picturesque, as you'll see in a later post.
We arrived in Innsbruck and were impressed, to put it lightly. Norbert met us virtually as we were arriving - couldn't have timed it better - and we hopped in his car and took a look around Innsbruck.
It is striking. It's in the valley between two sets of mountains, carved out by the River Inn (Bruck means bridge in German, so you can see how the city got its name), and each set of mountains is in the 8-10,000 foot range. We almost immediately decided to go up one side on a cable-car and look down across the valley. The cable car went up a thousand meters or so (packed with 50+ people) before letting us out and offering people the chance to trek the rest of the way to the peak.
We didn't. But we did look around, and it was, well, this.
After some wandering and staring, we descended and went to the other side of the valley to see their famous ski-jump from the Olympics. It was exactly what you might expect, but I can't say much beyond that because they wanted to charge something like 9 euros to get in and look at it closer. We declined.
Instead we went to the city center and had a stroll. It was, I'm told, a quaint and beautiful ski-resort-town in the center. I've not skied so I don't know, but it was really pretty. Fancy shops and nice restaurants, a historical pedestrian-only area, some very pretty old buildings, and the mountains looming over everything. But the river cutting through it puts everything else to shame. Example.
We woke up very early to learn that both Jenna and Norbert had dreams about being injured or dying while canyoning, and I was about as excited as I'd ever been. The weather was cold, the water would be even colder, and I was on top of the world with nervous laughter and "I hope we don't get hypothermia" giggles.
We drove out of they city and through a tiny town full of outdoors-companies and parked to discover we were the only tour of the day. The three of us plus three German guys would make up the whole tour, and we'd bound along the canyon in our wetsuits for about three hours. It was 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
We piled into a van and took off through the woods and up a mountain. By the time we got out, we were pretty high up and seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
We climbed over a fence, heard our debriefing, and climbed down into a canyon where we spent the rest of the morning doing all the things we were promised: jumping off waterfalls (highest was allegedly 14 meters. It was high), going under waterfalls, rappelling, hiking, and generally producing a staggering number of blurry photos of near-action.
It was truly one of the most fun experiences of my life. I long for a time when we can do something like that again because...man, it was just fantastic. Our tour guide, James, had a brilliant expression which he left us with: You should step out of your comfort zone as often as possible - when you step back in, you'll see that it's bigger.
As an added bonus, getting out of a wet suit is extremely difficult.
After the canyoning we drove back to the city for a few hours until Norbert had to head back toward Vienna. We had a train to catch in the early evening but had enough time to wander near the river a little bit more and see just why this place has such a reputation for being beautiful. It's because this place is always being beautiful.
If you find yourself in central Europe with some time to kill, particularly if you're a skier or a thrill-seeker or whatever, you can do a hell of a lot worse than Innsbruck. We were only there 36 hours, which was probably about as much as you really need - even though we didn't get to go in their big, well-reviewed museum - and we loved it.
Next up, Venice for a day-long trip in early October - the week after my birthday and a weekend which carries some other significance. Stay tuned.
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