Day 20

Hey everyone! Today was amazing. Probably one of my favorite days on this trip so far. It started early at 6:30am. I took a nice hot shower and then we headed out into the city. We walked around and saw the outside of the Imperial Palace, walked along the streets and then went inside St. Jacob's Cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful. The ceilings were painted with murals and it was so shiny and bright. It was one of the nicest ones that we've been in so far. After the cathedral, we decided it was time for breakfast at...McD's. A nice bacon and egg sandwich and a hot coffee. It was very relaxing and delicious. We left McDonald's and headed over to the tourist information center to buy our Innsburck card which would get us into to everything we wanted to see today. Our first stop was the inside of the Imperial Palace. It was beautiful. Each room had a different color scheme and theme. There were so many rooms and things to see. After the palace we walked to the stadtturm which is the tower int he main square. From there we climbed to the top and got an amazing panoramic view of the city. I made a video for anyone curious about what it looked like. We left the stadtturm and headed to the train station to validate our train tickets for tomorrow morning. We stopped at the grocery store on the way there to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. Mmmm. Sandwiches. My favorite. After we finished with that, it was time to head over to the cable car to travel up the Nordkette Mountain. We took a tram/funicular car up part of the mountain. We continued from there on two different cable cars to the very top, which is 2,300 meters, approximately 7000 feet. And guess what. There was snow there! And I played in it a little. We also climbed to the top of another hill and had an AMAZING view of everything. It was incredible. And incredibly cold. And windy. I was not dressed properly. After spending a bit of time up there and enjoying the views, we headed back down the mountain. But before we made it to the bottom, we stopped at the Alpin Zoo. This zoo only has plants and animals that are native to the alpine region. There were bears and moose and wild cats and even otters! It was definitely one of the highlights of this trip so far. We finished descending the mountain and waited for our bus. Once it arrived we had a nice ride to Schloss Ambras, a palace where Ferdinand the II or maybe Leopold the I lived during their reign. It was beautiful, but again, had so many rooms. And each room had so many pieces of artwork that I just couldn't take it all in. We left there and the wind was starting to pick up. At least it had been bright and sunny the whole day. Our next stop was the Wilton Basilica and Abbey. The inside was very beautiful. It was shining with gold and silver and paintings. Incredible again. After that the wind was really starting to pick up so we decided to find dinner. Choices are slim here and because our hostel doesn't have internet, McDonald's won again. So that is where I am currently sitting. We leave tomorrow at 5 am. Hopefully I can wake up on time!