Up in time to catch the nice continental breakfast at Gastoff Shupfen – our quaint little hotel, and then we raced out the door to catch the passing 4140 bus before it sped down the hill and into Innsbruck Main Station, passing the Wilton Basilica and Wilton Church on the city outskirts. Tickets cost 5.80 Euro for the pair of us one way.
We set off armed with a free tourist city map to find Maximillion’s Golden Roof and the Swarovski Crystal Factory…. located in the Old Town. We also had a list of practical things to track down…..laundromatt, camera shop (replacement extra battery for my camera), post office (we need to send more stuff home), food supplies (the hotel kitchen is closed on Mondays), Hajib (for me for visa photos), passport photo places (we need some for Iran and India visas), Pandora Shop (charms for Switzerland, Italy and Austria) and a bank (Iran doesn’t have teller machines or take credit cards from foreign banks).
We were surprised that not only did we manage to tick off our list, but we added some extra opportunistic wish list things…..extra MSR tent pegs and guy ropes, a backup gaslighter, a spatula, a kitchen knife with scabbard. At the SPAR we were in absolute heaven….Vince found most of the ingredients to make his famous Thai Green Curry Chicken for tonight’s dinner, we even found dry ginger (unheard of everywhere we have been in Europe) so we bought some cheap scotch to drink with it….yahoooooo!
We had lunch on the run …Vince had a Hot Chiky – chicken and vegetables in a pita bread with a hot sauce. I was a bit more cautious and settled for a Pretzel Place and had a cheese and spinach roll …where at least we could sit down to eat and drink.
We had trouble locating a scarf or shawl long enough for me to use as a makeshift Hajib, but we eventually settled on a 13 Euro sarong from a Hippy Bong Shop (much to Vince’s amusement!)…It is black with blue Celtic Knots….very fitting for his “Celtic Warrior Princess” (a name he has started calling me since my hair now resembles Side Show Bob….it’s wild!!!!!)
Back at our hotel we fired up our trusty “Dragonfly” in the Beir Garten and cooked dinner. We then came back upstairs so Vince could listen to songs from the Sound of Music downloaded from Youtube….yesterday he made me sing “DO-RE-MI” over our Senas as we crossed the boarder into Austria…..it all makes sense now!
