Innsbruck

Austria Walking 2024 day 8 - final hike + day 9 - back to Blighty (Written some weeks later…)

Edmund Graf Hütte to Innsbruck | Innsbruck to Buxted

Thomas in the foreground looking every bit of his nationality. John by the door gazing at the mountains for the last time.

Nobody was that chatty around the Hütte this morning in spite of it being a beautiful sunny day. It seemed that there were a lot of our fellow travellers in melancholy over the walk being pretty much done and perhaps the thought of their imminent return to work and other commitments.

I, on the other hand, was happy to be embarking on the last walk and to be heading back to the comforts of a city and then home. Don’t get me wrong, I had thoroughly enjoyed the outdoor aspects of this trip and felt enriched for the experience and spending time with John,  however, the lack of proper rest and comfort was taking a toll on my body battery health and recovery strength. Evidence of this nadir was readily available on my watch which was relentlessly doom counting my daily HRV status as low and as testament to the affects of this, I would, at some time over the next two days, contract COVID. 

Anyway, all of that was in the future which has now passed so before I get /got into a past / future tense tangle I need to finish off recording the process and activities of our last few days in Austria. 

Void of sheep to herd, the resident sheep dog sat on the hill outside of the Hütte seeing that all of the previous night’s residents went safely off on their way down the slopes and into town. 

There were two ways down and we had inadvertently taken the one that was trickier to negotiate and as we toiled over large and uneven rocks, we watched first Thomas and Felix speed past on the lower path and then the silent one (let’s call him Hans) with an injured leg (John and I had spent much time considering how different our relationship would have been with our German and Austrian colleagues barely two generations ago and had, rather unkindly is some instances, cast them into military stereotypes. Hans would definitely have been a Desert Fox). There was no rush though with regular buses from the nearby town to St Anton where the one O’Clock train would whisk us to Innsbruck.

On the way down on the long decent through the valley, we walked past many people heading up the hill on the start of their Hütte hop through the mountains. Some looked excited, some looked a little nervous and some looked like they weren’t going to make it through sleepless night one! We were able to look like the returning heroes from our expedition with a rugged glint of eye and honed quads taking us on the final stretch.

We met with Hans again at the bus stop and journeyed with him to the train station. We were an hour and a half early for the train so headed into the local town to seek refreshments. We found Thomas and Felix munching on some bread products from the supermarket but we opted for the cheese platter at the only wine bar open at midday.

We waited with the lanky father and son duo again on the train station platform and exchanged stats on the week gone by. We felt that we had done okay with our efforts and totted up the 4000 metres ascent. They, however, had more than doubled this and had virtually reached the peak of Everest! When it arrived, the train was packed and John dubbed the hour journey to Innsbruck as a super spreader event. I think that he was probably right.

Innsbruck is a compact city set in a bowl surrounded by snowy topped mountains. Marcia had warned of the cheesy homogenised main drag through the centre of town and how it was best to be avoided and after a fifteen minute walk from the station, we found our accommodation for the night right at the centre of it. We were conveniently situated opposite Starbucks and a number of other outlets to remind us how small the planet is…

We found a good restaurant for the evening though that did manage to retain a great deal of Austrian authenticity with locally foraged mushrooms and flowers together with locally sourced meat. We ate too much and drank more and then retired to our apartment that was smart on the surface but dumb underneath with no means of ventilation other than opening windows onto stag street. John took the small room with no windows and cooked all night.

Determined to see a lite of the city and keen to avoid an epically long wait at the airport, I planned a trip of the funicular railway to a nearby peak and found some proper coffee shops to ease the walk back into town after. Architecture by Saha Hadid and quality coffee made the morning and compensated for a less than ideal walk along a busy roadside for some of the route back to town.

In spite of my best endeavours, the Austrian efficiency of public transport delivered us to the airport three hours ahead of time for the flight home and a long wait in one of Europe’s smallest airports ensued incumbent with over privileged kids whose appalling behaviour was benevolently tolerated by their doting parents : ‘Oh Sebastian you little rascal, you shouldn’t flail your arms around hitting that gentleman in his private parts but you’re so lovable that I’m sure he won’t mind’ And there was me thinking that the Germans were an irritating nation of people…

Going away is great but so is arriving home after and I had a whole 48 hours of blissful gardening and reminiscing on the spectacular scenery of the Alps before COVID struck and left me with splitting headache and muscle loss. Ah well, those things will respectively go and return and then I will be left with happy memories.