Innsbruck, Austria

Chuck and I were still jet lagged Saturday morning and woke up at 4:30 a.m.  So, we had a head start driving to Innsbruck, Austria which is only a three hour drive from Maranello.  We weren't sure whether to spend a night there, so we packed an overnight suitcase anyways.  

It was a rainy and gray day as we headed in our rental car up north to Austria.  We were pretty surprised to see many tourist buses on the autostrade (highway).  Not only were there many tourist buses on the roads, but also pulled over at the service areas.  We pulled up to a couple of them, thinking that the next one wasn't going to be as crowded as the first, but they were all packed full of people heading up north to either the mountains or towns in Austria.  It took ten minutes just to pay for a croissant, gummy bears and a bag of chips.  Chuck really wanted an espresso, but when we saw the line, that desire quickly vanished.

It's pretty pricey driving on the highway.  We had to pay a toll near Maranello to just before the Italian-Austria border.  To travel on Austria's motorways, you are required to purchase a Vignette toll pass which costs 7.60 euros and good for ten days.  Not only that, but we had to pay an additional 8 euros at the toll booth in Austria!!

It wasn't snowing too much earlier in the day; but when we left later in the afternoon, it started to snow much harder.  It was pretty treacherous and slow-going driving home on the pass, especially in a Fiat Panda!  The mountains have been getting a good amount of snow.  There was probably a foot or so of snow on tops of buildings, highway rails.  It really made me yearn for snowboarding in the mountains!!

But I was really excited for the Christkindlmarkt which I haven't been to one since I was a kid in Germany.  Most of my fond Christmas memories have been those spent in Germany as its very into the Christmas spirit.  I envisioned yummy sweets, roasted chestnuts, beautiful ornaments, and the yummy sweets!!

Everywhere you looked there were many lights hanging about the buildings and all these dolls as well on the buildings.  They had these giant-sized dolls in the alleys as well on the sides of the buildings.

We enjoyed these delicious fried "doughnut" which you either have alone with powdered sugar or with powdered sugar and jam, or with just sauerkraut.  We chose the jam and it was oh so good!  Especially with the powdered sugar, which I wished had asked for more of!!

There were many booths at the markets as well as the sidewalk stores that displayed and sold masses of Christmas ornaments.  At the market, there were Christmas trees for sale, music, a children's theater, mules for children to ride on....though Chuck was trying to get me to ride on!  Yeah right!!

We couldn't resist the gluhwein as it smelt very good as well as warmed us.  It was really cold outside, which I wasn't at all prepared for!  Neither was Chuck, as we both didn't bring our gloves with us and I couldn't finish knitting the mittens on time.  So the gluhwein was a nice treat.  Gluhwein is mulled wine, usually prepared from red wine and heated and spiced with cinnamon, cloves, citrus, sugar.  For 2.30 euros we were able to keep the cup for a souvenir with the gluhwein.

Despite all the ornaments, I ended up just buying one!  I really wanted to buy these one made of egg shells, but thought it'd be too delicate to bring back in a suitcase.  We decided not to stay as there were so many Italian tourists that we didn't think we'd get a room and so ended up driving back home, which wasn't very far at all and made it safely home.