There was quite the busy morning traffic outside our hotel window when we woke up.  Notice anything different in the lineup of cars?  I guess everyone is really on their way to work, even carriages!
 

 
What an absolutely gorgeous day!
 

 
We started the day off by going to a local supermarket and picking up quite a few goodies to bring back with us, which included an armload full of different tubes of mustard.
 
Next up was lunch.  Last night's dinner was so good we went back to the same restaurant!  Why stop a good thing?
 

 
Mmm...German beer.  Keith was ALL about the bubbles rising from my hefeweizen.
 

 
I started off with an amazing pumpkin soup.  So light and fluffy with drizzled roasted pumpkin seed oil and roasted pumpkin seeds on top.
 

 
Keith had his new favorite, the very cheesy obazda.
 

 
I couldn't go another meal without my favorite German potato salad!
 

 
...paired with some veal sausage and a pretzel.  Lunch of champions!
 

 
Keith had some very tasty meat which I think was venison and a very bland dumpling.
 

 
Yum!  Lunch was definitely a success.  We definitely needed some hearty sustenance because next up was a trip to the top of the Alps that rise above Innsbruck!
 
Better yet, we were going to take the public transportation to get there that was just a couple minute walk from the center of town.
 

 
First we caught a little tram/subway car from the very futuristic station that took us about a third of the way up.
 

 

 

 

 

 
The view just kept getting better!
 

 
...and we were getting closer, but we were not quite at the top yet!
 

 
Time to switch to the cable car that takes you all the way to the top!
 

 
The vistas were pretty astounding as we quickly rose up in elevation.
 

 

 

 

 

 
Woohoo!  We are almost at the top!  It was very surreal to be up so high above Innsbruck.
 

 
I heard some bells ringing nearby and couldn't quite figure it out until they moved into my line of sight.  Sheep!  Apparently high elevation sheep!
 

 

 
This was where the cable car let us off, at a chalet sort of building that had a restaurant and bathrooms pretty much set into the side of the top of the Alps!
 

 
We still had yet another short cable car ride to get up to the top.
 

 
Summit!  Woohoo!  It was pretty darn windy up here but amazingly not all that cold.  The guys we were walking along with were jumpers, with small parachutes in their backpacks.  As one girl put it as we were riding up on the cable car, "insane"!
 

 
They took off on this trail; I hope they had a successful jump!
 

 
There was another trail that led up to the highest point in the area.  I had to keep stopping just to take in all of the view; it was still feeling very surreal to be as high up in the clouds as the rest of the mountain tops around!
 

 

 
Onward and upward!
 

 
Since I had never been to the top of an Alp I really had no idea what to imagine.  I hadn't expected it to be so gravely.  
 

 
I guess I just expected huge pieces of rock, not all this tiny gravel.  Learn something new every day!
 
A-mazing!
 

 
This is looking back at where the cable car let us out at.
 

 
Still a little farther to go to reach the top.
 

 

 
NOW we were finally at the summit! 
 

 

 
This is what it looks like on the other side of these Alps.  More Alps as far as the eye can see.
 

 

 
There was a bird that made strange sounds that came up looking for scraps with no fear of any human walking by.
 

 
Unfortunately the bird wasn't useful enough to take a photo of both of us together. Oh well!  Guess we'll just have to take care of those ourselves!
 

 

 
Pretty spectacular.
 

 

 

 
The views were simply breathtaking.  It was so mind-blowing to be up so high and peacefully looking over everything below us.  We started to make our way slowly back down to the cable car area.
 

 

 

 
There were several different hiking trails that followed the crest of the mountains.
 

 
Back at the cable car area there was this rental shop that rented these TINY little things to go down the trails on.  Can you say INSANE?  I suppose if I wanted to burn off both my butt cheeks it could possibly be a good idea but I can't even imagine trying to balance on that thing on the crazy bike trails!!  Hell no!
 

 
We still were a tad crazy; we decided to walk back down!  It's all downhill, right?  Piece of cake.
 

 

 
First of all the gravel of the top of the Alps comes in many different size chunks that even though are made into a road are pretty difficult to walk on.  We had on walking shoes but not hiking shoes so we were slipping and sliding quite a bit.
 
Hmmm...that switchback road in front of us was our path...
 

 
Here is the entrance to the CRAZY bike path.
 

 
Not too far along we found the bell-ringing-dinging sheep!
 

 

 
More of the crazy bike path...
 

 

 

 

 
A third of the way down was a small chalet / rest stop that you still had to go out of your way to get to.
 

 

 
We took it as a much needed refreshment and bathroom break.  Walking down a steep Alp is pretty hard work!
 

 

 
Any place that has this much wood stored up must get pretty darn cold in the winter!
 

 
No rest for the wicked.  Onward!  We wanted to get down to the bottom before dusk.
 

 
I'll admit we had gorgeous views and the walk was quite peaceful.  We just were ready for it to be finished already.  Our legs were pretty tired from the steep descent in the beginning.
 

 

 

 
At this point the beer I had earlier was sitting pretty heavily in my stomach.  I know we were in a forest but we kept passing bikers and people walking which didn't make me feel comfortable enough to just try to find a spot nearby.
 
We came upon this woodcutter was completely blocking the road.
 

 

 
Yeah!  Finally, a bathroom in sight!!!  I think I ran the last part just to try to make it in time.
 

 

 
We had been walking down the Alp for 3+ hours.  As silly as it sounds it had been pretty physically grueling and even though it was starting to get late we just needed to sit and take a break and have a snack.
 

 

 
Keith's snack turned out a LOT larger than he expected.
 

 
I decided to indulge in some french fries, something I normally never eat but I figured today I deserved it!
 

 
I made sure to go to the bathroom several times before we left.  We didn't have too far to go to make it back to the tram/subway station but it was at least a few miles and I didn't want to have to worry about it.
 
Bye bye tranquil chalet!
 

 

 
A cool fountain near the tram / subway.
 

 
Refreshments later when we got back into town never tasted so good!
 

 
We both were COMPLETELY pooped out.  We barely made it through dinner, dragged ourselves back to our hotel room and called it a night.  Tomorrow we were planning on heading back to Italy after lunch; we would need the day of rest in the car!
 
We conquered a mountain!  Or maybe it conquered us...

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