Sometimes on vacation we need to travel long distances across country to get to our next location. On those days I often plan for a few stops along our route to break up the drive and make the travel day it's own sort of activity. It also allows us to see a few more towns, cities or landmarks before stopping at our main base camp destination.
On this day we were going from Salzburg to Innsbruck and we stopped at Eben am Achensee in tge early afternoon. That was the subject of my last travel post. After Eben we stopped at Hall in Tirol, which I'll discuss now.
Hall is a small-ish town located about 15 minutes away from Innsbruck.
The town appeared on a lot of travel blogs under the label "one of Austria's most beautiful towns" and was highly recommended as a destination close to Innsbruck. We were headed right passed it on our drive so we figured that we may as well stop there. Who doesn't love seeing one a of country's most beautiful towns?
Hall dates all the way back to year 1256 and has the largest old town in the state of Tyrol. Supposedly it is even larger than that of Innsbruck Source.
It is somewhat hard to believe that the old town is larger because Innsbruck is a much bigger city and its old town felt larger to me, but then again, sometimes it's hard to tell where the historic quarter ends in a place and the more modern city begins, so it could actually be the case.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, but I can confirm that the historic district was a really nice spot. It was clean and colorful and had a lot of that old world charm common among historic European towns and villages. This was most noticeable when standing in the main plaza at the center of the old town in front of St. Nikolaus Church.
The plaza was paved in cobblestones and had a nice fountain at its center and was surrounded by colorful shops and cafes along its perimeter.
St. Nikolaus Church was at the center and had a large clock tower attached that could be seen while standing in the square. The church also had an arched staircase leading up to the main entrance which was a neat architectural feature. It's was a nice little spot indeed.
Narrow side streets branched out from the main square and we wandered around for some time checking out the little shops and design features of the buildings. European towns have so many interesting details that you don't really see nowadays in modern cities.
I really like these types of iron worked signs that are common in Austria and parts of Switzerland.
They are so fancy and certainly much nicer than the cheap billboard style that we mainly see in North America. It's pretty rare for me back home to take pause at a shop sign, let alone take a photo of it.
These types of metal sculptures bolted to exterior walls of some buildings are cool as well. I don't know if they are a personal item that someone put outside of their home or business, or if they have some sort of specific city purpose that maybe lost its meaning over time? Maybe they represent the profession of the shop that used to reside their back in history? Or maybe its an old sigil of a wealthy family that used to live there? Either way these little details add a lot of interest and character to a place.
A missing brick made for a nice little resting place for this pigeon.
Strangely, we didn't go into St Nicholas church that day and I can't recall the reason.
Instead we went into a different church located on the outskirts of the old quarter.
I believe that it was the Jesuitenkirche.
It wasn't a large church but it was impressively decorated inside.
It had a lot of elaborate statues and design work,
and the entire ceiling was covered in fresco murals.
It makes one wonder how long it took to paint something like that.
This guys is clearly having a bad day.
Here's a photo for the conspiracy theorists out there...top right corner.. the illuminati is coming for your children!... haha jokes.
The church was the last thing that we did in town before leaving. It was mid afternoon by that point and we needed to check into our hotel in Innsbruck and then figure out what to do for dinner. It was time to head out.
