Innsbruck - Austria

As we rode the train up into the alpine region the small villages with May Poles soon gave way to a snow capped mountain vista. It was quite surreal to see green fields flashing by and in the background massive picture postcard mountains looming over us. The houses seemed to be built at the very base of these steep mountains and in danger of being swept away in a slightest land slide. I was later assured that this was merely an optical illusion and that in fact there aren't that many landslides...

We had four days in Innsbruck and thanks to Cousin Heidi we had a free place to stay in her friend Wolfgang's house, which was actually being rented/lent out to his friends Marcus and Nicole at the same time. This place was right in the middle of town and had an old charm to it (Emily just called it old). Our adopted hosts (Marcus and Nicole) were really kind to us and made us a fantastic breakfast on our first day and then an Italian feast that night. This was followed by an adventure across town to a concert under the rail way that was interesting. Think bjork meets rage against the machine meets arcade fire (it was just like the three 2008 Big Day Out headliners were on the stage together, only they were tone deaf). The lead singer could sing but choose to whine and scream randomly. We were informed that she had in fact lead another band that were quite successful in America but were more mainstream, she quit to concentrate on her true passion, making horrible noise! You go girl!

We waited until the dusty haze that had blown over from the Sahara had cleared before going up to the local mountain peak. This was all very convenient (but obscenely expensive for tight budgets) done by a series of cable cars running smoothly and effortlessly over the heads of climbers that had started many hours earlier on their tracks to the peak. As we ascended the views were amazing and got better with altitude. Once at the top of the cable we climbed to highest point feeling the air becoming thinner and your effort increasing with each step. It's hard to capture the view in a picture but check out the couple below.

The remainder of our time was spent checking out central cafe and taking stock of our journey so far, hardly believing that at every street corner you're faced with a beautiful mountains in the background.