If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you might have seen a photos that I titled “F Yeah Alps.” And indeed, that is still my sentiment when I think back on my time in a small town called Fulpmes outside of Innsbruck, Austria.
Immediately after getting off the tram, I felt like what I was seeing wasn’t real. The mountains were too big, the snow topping them too white, the clouds entirely too close to the ground to be real. I had to be on The Truman Show.
But sure enough, I was in the Alps. I am a city girl by nature and the mountains in the South are like speed bumps in comparison. I checked into Doug’s Mountain Getaway, which arranged a trip up the Stubaier Gletscher. While some of the more outdoorsy of the guests hiked there, my new friend Dale and I simply took the cable car to the top. It wasn’t yet full ski season, but the prices to go up were still a bit steep.
While only a week before I was soaking up sun in Portugal, I was now standing ankle deep in fresh powdery snow, 3,210 meters (10,531 feet) up. We walked to the top of the platform and all you could see in every direction was peaks.
Even though my ExOfficio Storm Logic Sweater Jacket was keeping me fairly warm, I soon went inside the lodge at the very top for a big and cheap bowl of Hungarian style goulash.
There’s nothing better than a meal with a view. This meal was exactly like that Campbell’s soup commercial where the kid is a snowman but the bowl of soup melts him back to a person.
If you ever get the chance to see the Austrian Alps, I highly recommend it, even if you are an unabashed outdoors-phobe like myself. You can always cheat and take the cable car as I did instead of doing one of the many hikes.
I’ve never been to the Austrian Alps, but I’ve been to the French Alps. I can’t remember where I went though. I just remember skiing, hot chocolate, and kereoke.
wow i have never been to the Austrian Alps but now i want its lovely :)