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Day 31 - Another sunny day for a 2 hour train ride to Innsbruck. Accommodation was at the Hotel Weisses Freuz in downtown Innsbruck. A very old but tidy hotel that once accommodated Mozart. As we had arrived early, our rooms weren't ready, so we decided to make the most of the short stay here. We purchased a day pass that got you into & on to everything in the town. With some helpful advice from the receptionist we had a short walk to the Hungerburg funicular railway which then connected us with the Nordketten cable car for a 2300 metre ascent to the Seegrube chalet. We sat out on the verandah of the chalet and had lunch in splendid sunshine looking down at Innsbruck in the valley directly below. Weather up here was perfect & offered great views over the snow capped mountains not far away. This was our first chance to stand in snow, even though it was about 24 degrees and sunny. We hopped in another cable car for a further 200 metre ride to Hafelekarhaus, a place where you could see snow capped mountains for 360 degrees. Even at this height there were guys paragliding above (and below) us and we were watching the commercial jets coming in to land well below us. It is hard to capture the panaroma with a camera. A few hours later we were back downtown and boarded a hop on, hop off bus to Bergisel Ski jump. This jump has been used twice now in recent winter Olympics. We were fortunate to have the junior Austrian ski jump team practising this afternoon, so we caught the cable car to their take off tower and stood on a deck just above them to film them practising. The jump can be used all year by laying artificial grass (which they keep spraying when in use) in the landing & stopping areas. We then went to the area where they stop and videoed them landing towards us. These guys are crazy. On our journey back to the hotel we visited the Tyrolean Folk Art museum with artifacts dating back centuries, next to it was the Hofkirche church containing the famous tomb of Maximillian 1st (a german emperor back in the 15th century). Personally, I much preferred the ski jumping. The day finished around 11.30.
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