Today was a rest day in Innsbruck – we were booked into the youth hostel for two nights. When we woke up it was totally overcast and we couldn’t even see the mountain view that I knew was outside the window from the previous evening.

We spent the morning using the hostel washing machine and sitting in the hostel lounge working on our computers. It was nice and quite and comfortable, the internet connection was good and we had the place to ourselves.

As we sat there, the weather slowly cleared. By the time we went out at around midday the sun was out and it was getting quite hot. Lots of people were out and about, children playing in parks and eating ice creams. We had an unfortunate incident with the camera while taking a photo alongside the river – it fell. It was already a bit wonky, but now the lens didn’t open at all. We headed back to the centre and bought a new camera in a big department store. It is better than the last one! Hopefully you will see an improvement in the blog photos from now on.

After meandering around a bit, we found a local cafe and had a big lunch. We didn’t realise it would be so much food until it came – we didn’t have to eat again for the rest of the day. The local cuisine is very hearty – I had the Tyrolean dumplings and Kris had the schnitzel with potato salad. The proprietor has run the cafe for 31 years.

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In all, we did just 18 km around Innsbruck.