Unique Places in Innsbruck

Innsbruck, as the name implies, is located on the Inn River. But it also has a second river, the Sill, which originates in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass and flows quite steeply downhill for thirty-five kilometers before joining up with the Inn here in Innsbruck.

The Inn is a much longer river, 517 kilometers, which starts in the Swiss Alps and flows through parts of Switzerland, Austria and Germany before entering the Danube in the city of Passau.

The "Winklerhaus" dates back to the year 1903 and is a beautifully decorated building in Leopoldstraße 4, next to the famous Triumphpforte. From both sides it is beautifully decorated with sculptures and reliefs and also some art-noveau ornaments.
Just click on my picture in order to enlarge it and see these great details.
It also makes sense to walk around the building, inside one of the courts you may see more reliefs.
The building is used today by "Buerohaus Schmid" for their shop, it might even be the most beautiful bureau-shop in the world.

Very few tourists venture in the side streets of the old town. Of course all of you go to the Golden roof and probably Hofburg and the Hofkirche or to Ottoburg and the Inn river bridge. What you are probably missing is to be found just around the corner. For example take the side street by Swarovski shop. No shops here , but you can see the ancient houses built just in the fortified walls of the city that once stood.

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We stumbled across a little model train shop just outside the Old Town.....and in it we found a whole main floor of this shop crammed filled with working model train sets and low voltage miniature "amusement parks" complete with ferris-wheels and round abouts.

There was an older man working on the sets...he started them all up for us to watch...and in appreciation there is a "donation jar' to help him offset the costs of running this little distraction.

It was really quite something to see....whenever there was a problem he would disappear under the tables and come up where there was an opening and attempt to fix the little train that had come off the track...or slowed from poor connectivity.

In Universitatsstrasse you can see the great Jesuitenkirche: it is a Baroque church made by Santino Solari and Christof Gumpp. The church is situated in a beautiful square with to the sides the building of the ancient university and that of the ancient university library.

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Perched in a narrow gorge on a rock 100 metres above the waters of the Inn is this extraordinary Benedictine monastery - accessible only by the wooden bridge across the valley floor. Originating from the mid-10th century, a church was built in the 17th century, rebuilt in the 18th century. A major pilgrimage spot and a wonderful walk along the River Inn through the narrow confines of the ravine.

Train from Innbruck to Stans-bei-Schwaz (30 minutes) - then simply follow the track up the hill and into the ravine. Fairly straightforward walk but can get steep at times.

Like most cities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, Innsbruck has a large Volkshochschule or Adult Education Center which offers daytime and evening courses in all sorts of subjects including languages, computers, music, environment, gymnastics, etc.

If you look at the English language courses in their program you will see that they have made a very good choice of which textbooks to use, LOL.

There is a fantastic cycle path along the river "Inn" that goes for miles and miles always with the stunning backdrop of the Alps. You can cycle trough half of Austria following that route actually...

Tirol Info
Maria-Theresien-Stra?e 55
A-6010 Innsbruck