This is in fact a wonderful city and probably my favorite city visited in Austria.  Endless opportunities for wandering and photography abound.  It seems certain famous travel writers agree with me – I coincidentally stopped at a traffic light to find Rick Steves standing next to me busily jotting notes and snapping photos for his forthcoming guidebook.  A bit surreal.

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(18 Photos)

Innsbruck is the capital city of the Tyrol region.  This area has supposedly been populated continuously since the early stone age.  Throughout history, it has been an important crossing point over the river Inn.  The “Golden Roof” pictured is an Innsbruck landmark decorated with 2657 fire-gilded copper tiles for Maximilian I (of Habsburg fame), Holy Roman Emperor in 1500.  The university here was founded in 1669.

Today, Innsbruck is an ideal place for skiing in the winter and mountaineering in the Summer.  As such, it is full of very active, fit people.  I was fortunate to be able to join a “canyoning” (known as canyoneering in the U.S.) trip professionally guided by my good friend and local resident, Gunther.  The trip basically consisted of donning a wetsuit and helmet, hiking to the top of a canyon (with flowing water), and navigating down the river and its waterfalls by whatever means necessary – scrambling, swimming, abseiling (rappelling in the U.S.), or simply jumping off ledges to the pool below. That was an altogether new experience for me and very enjoyable.

As I arrived during off-season, I had but one choice for hotel.  It was nice, but I might have to question the knowledge of the staff – explanation ensues….

I planned to depart for the East coast on a Sunday.  I carefully asked the concierge if buses ran on Sunday and which stop I needed.  I arrived at the stop dutifully and waited, and waited,  Hmmm, 15 minutes past scheduled arrival time and no bus.  No biggie, this kind of thing is common here, right?  I took it in stride and waited for the next schedule bus – and the next – for a total of about 4 hours.  I asked every passerby if this was the correct stop and if buses ran today.  “Si” accompanied by a reassuring nod was always the reply :\

It seems that even though this is a dinky little town, it is situated on a slope not very conducive to walking around apparently.  So, seemingly the entire town decided to hop in their cars and “cruise”.  All day.  Fortunately for me, my bus stop was at a key intersection, so I got to know just about every face in town intimately after viewing the quizzical look displayed by each about 50 times.  The steady stream of exhaust was quite a pleasure as well.

I eventually gave up and checked back into my hotel.  The staff was stumped as to why the bus didn’t arrive.  The next morning after checkout, I decided to find a different place to buy a bus ticket and ask them about the schedule – surely they would know.  “Oh no, the buses don’t run on Sunday this time of year”.  No kidding.  After triple-checking the stop and time, I eventually caught a bus out of town…

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Medieval times saw the most action here as this city waged war with other Sardinian powers for control of the island.  The pictured statue next to city hall honors Eleanor of Arborea, known for her promulgation of the Carta di Logu – the legal code of the Arborea region that stood from 1392 until 1827.  Today, Oristano is a relatively sleepy town with some interesting shops that I’m not sure “Tigger” would be too fond of.

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Oristano

As peaceful as it seems, the castle itself was apparently the site of many a witch-burning in the early 1500’s – at least 9 women from Fie were burned here.  Now it offers guided tours and concerts.  I took the tour solo as no other tourists were there and my guide only spoke German and Italian.  However, she lent me a little document written in English pointing out the major attractions, so while we didn’t have much conversation, the tour was good

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Shorter Walks in the Dolomites

The cirque is a lake that lies beneath Latemar is Lago di Carezza and comes with a story of it’s own (from the wooden sign by the lake):

THE MERMAID OF LAKE CAREZZA
Many years ago, the lake Carezza was the home of a beautiful mermaid. One day, the wizard of Masare listened to her singing and, immediately, fell in love with her. He used all his power to win the mermaid’s heart but she would not relent. Therefore, the wizard asked the witch Langwerda for help. Langwerda advised him to dress as a jeweler and to create a rainbow running from the Catinaccio to the Latemar.
Then, he should go back to Lake Carezza, entice the mermaid and kidnap her. The wizard followed the witch’s advice but forgot to disguise himself. The mermaid admired the colourful rainbow and the glittering gems but realized very quickly that the wizard was near and dived into Lake Carezza. Since then, she has never been seen again. Being lovesick, the wizard destroyed the rainbow, shattered it into pieces and threw all its parts into the lake, together with the gemstones. For this reason, Lake Carezza still shimmers to this day in all the wonderful colors of the rainbow.

Lago di Carezza was very full the day I arrived, with most of its surrounding path underwater.  I made my way around the lake and headed up towards the base of Latemar.  The path I took was through an area called “Labarinto” (labyrinth) that runs below the North face.  Agatha Christie once visited this area, and set the end of her thriller The Big Four on this route.  I found a great place to have a little picnic and admire the spires and rockslides.  This is a great place for a relatively easy day of hiking – not to be missed!

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The Latemar Massif
Shorter Walks in the Dolomites