Saturday, October 23, 2010

Innsbruck

Greetings from Innsbruck! We are staying in this pretty city in Austria for two nights. It is far warmer here tonight than it was in Nuremberg, which is surprising given the proximity of the snowy Alps, but wonderful. We're staying in a new hotel that seems great so far, and we had an enjoyable stroll around the Old Town in the fading light (David bought a fun Austrian hat) before finding dinner at a restaurant close to our hotel.

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Main street in the historic center, with lots of people out strolling on a Saturday night. Note the lights on the mountain - those are ski lodges or similar, and look so cozy and inviting up there!

The restaurant had no English on its menu or spoken by our waitress, which was fun. We had become familiar with the typical meals available at German restaurants, but now there are new Austrian things to try! I ordered Tiroler Gröstl, which I knew nothing about except that it is a traditional dish and comes with a fried egg (Spiegelei).

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The gamble paid off! Gröstl turned out to be somewhat similar to our beloved Swiss dish, rösti. It consists of sliced potatoes mixed with tender pieces of beef, a bit of bacon, caraway seeds and other seasonings, and a fried egg on top. It was very delicious.

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David had the mixed grill, and since he knows the German names of meats he knew what he was getting. It was really delicious as well - the meats (turkey, pork and beef) were all really tender and even the fries were above average.

The only downside? Smoking is still legal indoors in Austria! Arrgh... we didn't realize that. It has been outlawed in Britain and Germany, so we'd been taking smoke-free dining for granted. The restaurant had a large, hip bar and it's Saturday night, so there were plenty of smokers, but it wasn't too bad. We've had much worse experiences in Switzerland, where it's still legal as well.

Looking forward to exploring the city more tomorrow. Good night!

(For highlights of our stay in Nuremberg, please see the post below, which I published tonight just before this one.)

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