Goodbye to Italy, Fighting in Innsbruck and Finding a Gem

Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013

Time to check out, say goodbye to Italy.  I am sad!  I want to look at these mountains forever.  I want to watch the skiers forever.  But the only reason we are on this amazing journey is because of Kuka, and if Brad doesn't show up for work tomorrow, they won't be happy.

We started packing up and Brad went to the bakery.  Which was of course closed.  And there is nothing else around here.  Our hotel does offer a breakfast, but the total for our family would have been 30 Euros and that seems like a lot for a continental breakfast, even if it is in Fabulous Italy.  So we ate some cereal, fruit and leftover rolls from yesterday, not quite fresh.  And Lea ate the rest of her pizza!

Brad and the girls got the car all packed while I checked out.  Have I mentioned that most German (and now German/Italian) business people don't seem to be very rushed?  Like in a restaurant.  They will not come and bring you your check or ask if you are all set until you ask them for it.  You can sit there for 3 hours if you want.  (With your dog, if you want.  Or your screaming, climbing kids.)  Anyway, Konrad was very nice and got us checked out but he is super friendly so we chatted a bit.  In the middle of my credit card transaction he stopped and ran over to the breakfast leftovers that he was putting away.  He gave me all of the croissants and and orange.  Just for free!  He said there were no other guests that day and I should take them.  6 croissants, which turned out to be filled with orange marmalade.  He was so nice!  I told him he will be getting an excellent review from me on Trip Advisor!  He is used to this...that is how I found him :)

We went through many tunnels in the mountains

We left for home at about 10:30 am.  I was very excited to stop in Innsbruck which is about an hour away.  I have read that their Altstadt (Old city) is really amazing. Plus they have Olympic stuff there!  I was really looking forward to it.  But the girls were tired and didn't care about stopping.  Brad was stressed out because it's a pretty big city and he didn't like driving in it.  We couldn't find "Altstadt" on the GPS so were randomly driving around.  Which is a good way to stumble upon hidden gems, right?  (Yes, as you will see later.)  We finally parked and started to walk, but Brad was mad at me and walked 50 feet ahead of us.  Then when he was going to walk into traffic and I saved his life (hey, the Blog Writer gets to tell the story however she remembers it) he got more upset and gave me The Look.  So I said forget it, let's go.  We can just see Innsbruck NEVER.  Then I stormed back to the car.  A less than sunny moment in our weekend, but truthfully, haven't you all been there/done that?  It seems funny now, but I was very unhappy.  We left Innsbruck with only having seen this.

A very close plane

OOO the excitement is killing me.  See Brad way up there?

I knew Brad was feeling bad in a bit (because he should have :P ) when he saw a sign for a castle and went to find it.  We drove up another mountain but it was closed in the winter.  Too bad, it was pretty!

Bummer.  We drove back down to the town which was called Jenbach, still in Austria.  We were hungry since we didn't eat in INNSBRUCK (just can't let it go.)  So we looked for a restaurant.  What a quaint little town!  It had a very full, very clear canal.

No idea where we are going...just wandering

 

We found a little cafe and went in. But what the heck is this?  Full of smokers, smoking?  Inside?  This can't be.  This is unacceptable.  So we left and came across another restaurant.  It seemed fine (although later we thought we smelled smoke...we didn't see any smokers, though.)  It was not very big but they only had 2 servers, so it took awhile.  It was really pretty cheap so we weren't expecting much.  But it blew us away!!  Here are the pics (you know you love my food pics.)

Lea's good old chicken strips and fries.  Came with a pile of mayo!  She loved that.

Brad had wienerschnitzel with mushroom gravy and buttered noodles.  The gravy was fantastic!

Lainie ordered a mac and cheese dish off the kids menu thinking it would be small.  It was huge!  She had leftovers!

Mine was billed as "baked potato with turkey stripes."  Came with roasted onions, crispy little bite sized pieces of turkey, salad and sour cream with herbs in it.

The meal was beyond our expectations.  Really good!!!  Right before we left, an elderly lady came up to Lea and said a bunch of stuff to her.  I didn't get much of it, but we told her we didn't understand.  She said something about a disability and said "but she understands me!"  I don't know why she thought Lea could understand her, but she was so sweet and just kept smiling at Lea and seemed to really love her!  I wish I knew what she said!  As she left, she told us goodbye and have a nice day.

We went out the back way to find the restrooms and there was a banquet hall attached to the restaurant.  There was an Oompah band playing accordions and such and lots of people dancing.  It was cool!  This place was really a gem of a find.

We continued our drive home.

The sign of a good weekend!!

We got home and ate a hodgepodge of stuff for dinner.  Can't buy anything because it's Sunday!  Gotta stock up tomorrow.

This was such a fantastic weekend!  I could do without the fighting, but it can't ALL be fun and games.  LOL!!!