Innsbruck is a mid to large city located in Austria on the far west side of the country. Its essentially at the exact opposite end as Vienna, if you happen to be familiar with it's geography.
The city is about a two hour drive from Munich Germany and the same from Salzburg Austria, just to give you a little more info on where its situated on the map.
It's also near the beginning of the Austrian Alps near Switzerland, so you get to see some really nice views of the mountains in and around the town as well.
The city is nestled in a valley and surrounded by mini mountains on nearly all sides. They are within view nearly any place you look.
That is, as long as the buildings of the city aren't blocking your sight lines, of course.
There is also a river running through town, the Inn River, which adds that little something extra to Innsbrucks appeal. Mountains and water, what more could you ask for?
After our "Top of Innsbruck" hike in the early morning of day two of our stay there, we made our way back down to the city center to walk around and explore the old town.
The city center is known as Maria-Theresien-Straße and was a good place to start our journey.
The area seemed slightly newer than the historic district, with a wide pedestrianized street that was lined with a variety of restaurants and more modern shops and department stores.
The buildings there, still had a lot of character despite being home to the usual and ordinary stores found in any major city.
There was a cool pink church on the street as well. Pink isn't the usual color of choice for most churches from what I've seen.
Here is a look at its interior.
From there we moved into the actual old town.
The first thing that I noticed there was the beautiful colors of the historic buildings.
They were orange and pink, tall and proud, and built upon cobblestone and patchwork cement streets.
The whole area had a really unique feel with a lot of personality and interesting character.
Note the character reference and the clever insertion of a photo of a building with a Disney character on its facade.
The streets were fairly wide in the area but with the five story buildings lining their sides and blocking the sun from reaching the ground, they really felt quit narrow in some places.
The streets were busy with tourists but I actually didn't feel like over tourism was an issue there or get that dreaded feeling of claustrophobia that can come with it.
That wasn't to say that there weren't a lot of people around though.
It was a tourist destination in Europe so one has to expect a fair amount of people to be present.
Time of day was also a factor as well. Okay, moving on...
As I mentioned, the buildings had a lot of character to them aside from just their color.
I liked the bay windows that were similar to those that we saw in the small town of Hall in Tirol.
We saw them on buildings all over the old town In Innsbruck .
Even large banks of them On the row houses.
Perhaps they are a common architecture design feature in that part of the country?
They were certainly unique in my opinion.
The buildings also had some beautiful murals painted on their facads, like the ones that you see in Switzerland and Bavaria Germany (must be an Alps thing).
One particularly grand building was painted white and pink and had this spectacular carved-work facade.
I'm sure this particular form of architectural detail has a proper name other than "carve-work," but I just don't know what it is so I'm going with that title.
It was a really nice building though. Here is a close up view to give you a sense of the detail and work put in.
Another street that I liked in that area was this one, with its colorful flag banners strewn between the buildings and its red carpet running down the center.
It was lined with quaint little restaurants and artisinal shops.
Another cool feature of the city was the famous "Golden Roof" that was built back in year 1500 to commemorate the marriage of Emperor Maximilian I and Bianca Maria Sforza.
It sparkled in the sunlight really glowed in the evening sun.
It also looked like it would have been a nice spot to stand and watch the people in the square below.
Other spots to check out were the many churches.
I stumbled upon this one (above) situated in a colorful flower garden while going off on my own for a bit while everyone else napped in the afternoon. That was one of the last spots I found that day before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
Conclusions aren't my forte, but all in all we really enjoyed the city of Innsbruck and especially the old town district. I'd say that it's worth checking out if you're ever traveling the country or in the area. It has a lot of character and color and the city is situated near the mountains and river, all of which make it a great travel destination to explore.
