The Reason We Have Fernweh - Austria Part II
We spent our first week in Austria exploring Vienna and Salzburg. For our second week, we were heading to the mountains to a town called Axams. Axams is located just west of Innsbruck, and hosted some ski events during the 1964 and 1976 Olympics.
As we made our way from Salzburg to Axams, we made a pit stop in Berchtesgaden, Germany. This town is known for Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest retreat that sits on top of the mountain peak overlooking the town. We went into to the Dokumentation Obersalzberg and looked through the museum, which gave a great overview of the history of the Eagle’s Nest as well as how the town was impacted by the huge Nazi headquarters which took over most of the area. This was also the area where Hitler finished writing Mein Kampf in the early 1920s and where his mistress Eva Braun lived throughout most of the war.
After the museum we planned to take the ride all the way up to the top of the mountain, where you can still walk through the Eagle’s Nest (that has now been turned into a restaurant) and get amazing views of the whole mountain range. Unfortunately, it was a very foggy, cloudy, and misty day, so there were no views even mid-way up the mountain. We opted to save the $30 and not go up to the top. However, we’ve heard the views are spectacular, you can even see all the way to Salzburg on a clear day!
The fog and cloudiness continued as we made our way through the mountains to Axams. But as soon as we reached Innsbruck it cleared and we were treated to beautiful mountain views! Our Airbnb was located on the south side of Axams, basically one of the last buildings before you head up the mountain to the ski hills. We had awesome views of the mountains and the valley from our balcony, we loved it! We enjoyed our morning coffees outside everyday. Even when it rained a few times we could stay out and enjoy the peace and quite of the mountains. It was so nice.
Axams was the perfect spot for us to stay as we explored the nearby sites. We were here for a week, but we had 5 things we wanted to do: tour Innsbruck, drive to Bavaria Germany and visit the Neuschwanstein castle, visit the Swarovski Kristallwelten exhibit in Wattens Austria, do a hike in the mountains, and drive to Liechtenstein.
Our first full day was spent in Innsbruck, and we had an amazing time exploring the city. It was a lively mountain city that reminded us quite a bit of Canmore and Banff. There were awesome shops, great cafes and restaurants, mountains views, a river, and adorable Austrian buildings. We spent all morning wandering around the town centre, and after lunch we walked across town towards the ski jump. You could see it up on the hill from anywhere in town, and we didn’t really plan on heading all the way there, but before we knew it we were walking up the hillside and on our way to the base of the jump. It was super cool! We have never been to an Olympic ski jump before - even though we live in a city that hosted the Olympics and has one! The jump was massive up close, and it wasn’t busy at all so we were able to walk around and get some awesome pictures. We made our way up to the top of the jump, and had an afternoon snack right by the window where we had great views of Innsbruck. It was the perfect afternoon!
We could also stand right above the section where the jumpers starting bench is, so we could see their exact view as they prepare to head down the jump. It was intense!! We both couldn’t imagine what it would be like to head down. To top it all off, at the bottom of the jump, just past the stands, is a massive cemetery. We both thought it was crazy that as the jumpers looked down the jump, they stare right into a cemetery. It would be so creepy!
We both really loved Innsbruck, and it instantly felt like home. It was a great start to our time in the area.
The next day we were heading to Germany to visit Neuschwanstein castle. It was about an hour and a half away from Axams, so we planned to leave bright and early. Fortunately we looked online a few days before, and were able to pre-purchase tickets for the castle tour. The wait times for the castle are crazy! Even booking about 5 days in advance, we were limited with the times and days we could go. You can only see the inside of the castles with a tour, and our time was scheduled for around noon on the Sunday. We got to the castle just before 8:30 so that we could spend some time getting pictures outside of the castles before the massive crowds came. Even with our pre-purchased tickets we waited in line for 30 mins to collect them. So if you go, definitely head there early! For the next 3 hours we walked to both castles - Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. We took the hiking route to Neuschwanstein, and it took a solid 40 mins of uphill walking to reach the castle. We continued to walk up for another 5 minutes so we could reach a bridge called Mariensbrücke. From this bridge you can get awesome views of Neuschwanstein. The bridge is known to be insanely busy, and when we got there there were already a ton of tourists on the bridge. We hiked up to the bridge, but there is a bus that drives up to the same spot, so quite a few buses had already made their way up before we reached it.
We got to the bridge and snapped a few shots, and the view is really spectacular. There is a pathway the continues past the bridge, but we had heard it was closed due to a rockslide. However, when we looked it appeared to be open, so we crossed the bridge and walked up the hiking path for about 100m. It took us up to an opening where we had a clear view of the castle without any other people. It was awesome! We were shocked that everyone was just staying on the bridge and then turning around without seeing what was across the bridge. Sharleen ventured down to a second clearing where she could see the crazy amounts of tourist that were standing on the bridge. The two of us stayed up here taking pictures and enjoying the views alone for about 20 minutes before anyone else came up. It was awesome to have the views alone to ourselves. We couldn’t go any further because that pathway was closed, and we wanted to see the front of the castle before our tour started. So we headed back across the bridge. By this point, there were hundreds of people by the bridge, and a huge line up to get on the bridge. It was crazy!
The inside tours of the castles were just as impressive their exteriors, especially Neuschwanstein. Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II, the King of Bavaria from 1864 to 1886. Construction of the castle took over 17 years, and was unfortunately never finished as construction of the castle stopped when Ludwig II died in 1886. The tour takes you through all 16 completed rooms, and each one looks like a art piece. There seemed to be an infinite amount of carvings, paintings, details, and gold. It really was impressive! Everything was also original, as the castle was not impacted by either world war. By this point in our trip, we thought we had seen enough castles, but this castle was impressive - inside and out. We can see why it was the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Disney castle. The second castle, Hohenschwangue was also very beautiful. It was the childhood home of King Ludwig II, and is much older than Neuschwanstein. It is not nearly as glamorous as Neuschwanstein, but worth the tour, especially if you are planning on seeing Neuschwanstein. Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside either castle.
We left the castles shortly after our second tour ended, around 4pm. It was a full day of castle exploring! Even though we were quite tired, we decided to drive up the mountain right beside our apartment on the way home. It didn’t take long, maybe 8 minutes up the curvy road, before we found the Axamer Lizum ski hill. It was gorgeous and tucked up in the mountain range. We were so lucky to be staying so close to these beautiful mountains.
The next day we decided to drive the Liechtenstein. This was the closest we would be to this small country, so we wanted to take a quick drive to see it. We were quite excited to see the 6th smallest country in the world! We did a pretty detailed overview of our day in Liechtenstein in our Week in Review: Week 9. Unfortunately it was in our Least Favourite section, as we found we weren’t overly impressed with this small country. Maybe we thought it would be something more glamorous and hyped it up in our heads. But we both felt like we would have had more fun in Axams or Innsbruck, and had wished we had stayed closer to home. At least it was another country to check of our list!
Our first three days were jammed packed and quite busy, so our 4th day in Axams was spent relaxing. We had some issues with the internet in our Airbnb, so we headed into Innsbruck and relaxed in a cafe with free wifi. It was raining, so it felt awesome to be in a comfortable cafe, sipping on tasty cappuccinos, and catching up on our blog. After a few hours, we headed into the rain, and did a little shopping. We had a few hikes coming up, so we wanted a few pieces of equipment - Sharleen wanted hiking poles, and Darrell wanted a camelback so we could bring more water on our hikes. We also got a waterproof bag to have in our backpack, since it seemed like we were encountering more rain in these parts of Europe. Innsbruck is full of shops selling outdoor equipment. We could have easily spent all of our money there!
That evening we decided to go to Watten and visit Kristallwelten. The town is only 10 minutes away from Innsbruck, and we thought it would be less busy during the evening, so it seemed like a good time to go.
It turned out that it wasn’t busy at all, so we were able to walk through the exhibits without too many people nearby. The museum was awesome, and there were so many interesting Swarovski displays. We also talked about this place in Week in Review: Week 9 as it was Sharleen’s highlight. In a lot of ways it seemed like an adult playground, and both of us had a lot of fun as we wandered through the indoor exhibit and outdoor garden area. We stayed right until closing time and then we had to rush out to a grocery store before it closed for the night. We probably could have stayed longer, enjoying the garden and water show.
After having a pretty low key day, we decided to head to the mountains for a hike. Sharleen had done a bit of digging into what route we should take. We were debating between taking a gondola up the mountain in Innsbruck and finding a path up there to hike, or heading a little bit north of Innsbruck to hike a gorge in the mountains. We ultimately decided to hike the gorge, as we knew we would be heading into the Italian mountains shortly. The gorge was also basically free, as we only needed to pay for parking, whereas the gondola would have probably cost close to $50 Canadian and parking in Innsbruck would have been close to $20 on top of that.
We headed to a town called Scharnitz, and stopped by their information centre. We’ve found information centres really handy for hikes, especially hikes that aren’t as popular and when there is limited information online. We were planning to hike the Gleirschklamm Gorge, and we kind of knew where it started, but we felt way more confident after stopping at the information centre. They also gave us a map of the area which was super helpful.
The hike was about 14km long, with about 1.5km through the Gleirschklamm Gorge. The first 5km were in a forested area, with half of the path being on a forest road and half on a hiking trail. It was a pretty easy walk, with little elevation changes. Along the way you can see down to the bright green/blue water, but you only get to the gorge halfway through the hike. The gorge was super pretty, with bright aqua blue water beneath jagged light coloured rock edges. It was really gorgeous to walk through, except for about 100m where we saw the craziest spider! It was a pretty big spider, with a stripe pattern. It was in a web that went across the path, and we were very close to walking through it! It definitely freaked us out, and then we took about 15 steps and saw another one, then another one, and another one. And before you knew it we kind of stopped looking at the beautiful scenery and were watching out for spiders! Sharleen’s hiking poles became spider web protectors and we were both a little on edge! We definitely did not want to accidentally walk right into a massive web with one of these beasts!
There were actually quite a few bugs on this hike, more than we had seen on any other hike on this trip. We had everything from beautiful butterflies, to iridescent beetles, and hot pink winged things. We took so many bug photos because they were actually really cool to look at! Just not the spiders.
Once we finished the walk through the gorge, we had a short walk through a beautiful meadow, which was full of wildflowers and more insects. It seemed like the meadow was alive with so many colours, smells, and little insects flying about. It was quite cute! We were close behind another couple the whole way, and when they stopped for a break we chatted with them for a little bit. It turns out there is quite an extensive hiking hut system in Austria, and if we wanted to we could spend days and days in the mountains hiking from one hut to another. Very similar to other places we had heard about in Italy. There was one hut nearby, but in the opposite direction of our hiking loop, and apparently when you arrive there the owner greets you with homemade schnapps! It was quite tempting, but we decided to continue with our route. The lady said the scenery was nicer along our route anyways.
We left the meadowy landscape quite quickly, and spent about 3 km walking along another forestry road. This time we were on the other side of the gorge, and there weren’t too many views from above. It did open up in one section and we got a nice view of the gorge from above. But for the most part it kind of felt like we were walking on a gravel road in the forest, which we didn’t find too interesting. Then the last few kilometres were back on the original path, through the forest.
We both thought the hike was just ok. It was nice to see all of the interesting insects, and the gorge was pretty, but other than that the hike didn’t have anything really spectacular - other than it being nice nature. We’ve been quite spoiled with the Norway hikes, but we both realized that we like hikes that have a destination point, something to look forward too, not just a nice leisurely walk. So it wasn’t our favourite hike, but it was still nice to get outdoors and have it not cost $70. If we could do it again, we probably would have opted for a hike at the top of Innsbruck, or maybe one by Axamer Lizum behind our apartment.
Our last full day in the area was another easy going day. We had finished everything we had wanted to do in the area, and just spent the day walking around Axams. It really was such a beautiful town, and loved all of the time we got to spend there. We easily could have spent a month here, there is so much to do! And you really can’t beat the beautiful views.
From Axams we were heading towards Graz to visit relatives. On the way, we made a three day stop in northern Italy, where we wanted to do at least one hike in the Dolomites. The weather was a little rainy and foggy, so we only had one day to hike. But man was it amazing! We were happy we found a way to satisfy our hiking need, especially after the so-so experience in Austria. We did a whole blog post on this hike, so definitely give it a read for details on our adventure. It was just as fun as some of our Norway hikes, and had us wishing we had some better weather to tackle at least a few more! The drive from the Dolomites into Graz was quite beautiful. The mountain roads bring you through some of the most spectacular scenery. But they are definitely quite curvy!
We were staying with family just outside of Graz, in a town called Albersdorf. It was awesome to spend two days with relatives, and to have delicious food and home cooked meals! We were definitely spoiled, and while we were there we had an amazing tour of Graz. It was so nice to be able to see the beautiful city with locals, and people who knew the best spots to take you. We went up the funicular to Schlossberg, saw the Uhrtum clock tower and the gorgeous gardens and city views, and went to the Landeszeughaus army museum. It was a jammed backed two days, but the highlights for us were definitely spending time with family, and having some amazing home cooked meals. We were so appreciative for the amazing hospitality, and hope that someday they will come visit us when we are back and settled in Canada - or where ever we land!
We stayed in Austria for almost three weeks, and we both had an amazing time! This has been Darrell’s favourite country, and for Sharleen it was a close second - just behind Norway. Austria seemed to have a little bit of everything - beautiful cities with a rich history, peaceful towns surrounded by nature, mountains, great food, and super friendly people. In a lot of ways we were reminded of home. We both know we will comeback to Austria again, it’s just too beautiful of a place to visit once!
