We just spent a wonderful Christmas in Seefeld, Austria, a magical alpine wonderland located in the mountains above Innsbruck. It took us approximately 4 hours to drive from Basel (not bad at all and we had jolly Christmas music to get us in the spirit). And let me tell you, we went through some loooong tunnels in the Austrian Alps - one was 10 miles long and I was happy to see light again on the other side! Whew.
We rented a furnished apartment in a guesthouse, which was about a 5 minute walk to the center of town. The owners didn't speak much English so I was able to try my German skills, which are not very good, but we managed to communicate. There was a curling rink and sledding run behind the house, and a nice view of the mountains all around.
The Christmas Market really gets into full swing in the evenings with the après-ski crowd. We grabbed some cringles (fried potato spiral), hot gluhwein and found a heat lamp we could huddle by - it was chilly! Carolers provided entertainment one night, and the following night it was a brass band as well as free sleigh rides. There was also a hut where children could write letters to Santa and post them at the "angels letter box", how cute!
On Sunday we awoke to a pretty big snowfall (over 6 inches), but it was a heavy/wet snow. We drove to the next town up, Scharnitz, and tried out our new snow shoes. Matt found a little loop that passed by a small chapel. The trail was mostly on a logging-type road but the snow was still deep and the snow shoes worked out great. It was a lot of fun and a good workout in the fresh mountain air!
On Monday (Christmas Eve) we took the train down to Innsbruck for the afternoon. It was a very scenic 35-minute ride through Tyrloean villages and snowy mountain peaks. In Seefeld it was nice and sunny and bright, but we could see the fog in the valley below, which is where we were headed, ay yay yay. The train descended closer and closer until we were in the fog and unable to see much of our surroundings, which was a bit spooky. Innsbruck is really pretty and surrounded by jagged mountains, so it's no wonder the city has hosted the winter Olympics twice! We saw the spectacular ski jump in the distance, which was quite a sight. The atmospheric old town was decked out with holiday lights, fairy tale characters and a lot of last minute shoppers.
We enjoyed strolling through the colorful streets and visiting a few churches, one of which boasts dozens of stunning bronze statutes. The Hofburg (Hapsburg palace) was pretty, but not nearly as impressive as the Schönbrunn in Vienna. When we got cold we popped into a popular cafe to warm up with some hot cocoa and heavenly apple strudel.
Oddly enough, the city's main Christmas Market was closed on the 24th and 25th! However, there were a few wooden huts set up on the main street selling the traditional mulled wine and small bites.
The Bobovski family has a tradition of going out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve and most towns, no matter how small, seem to have at least one Chinese restaurant - Seefeld was no different. After returning from Innsbruck and with high hopes we walked to the Chinese restaurant I found online, but it was closed, sigh! Therefore, we settled on fajitas for our Christmas Eve meal (Matt cooked).
Later, we went to Midnight Mass at St. Oswald, the old church in the town square. The church bells were going crazy as we approached, indicating it was 11 PM on the nose. Well, to say church was crowded would be an understatement. It was completely full with wall to wall people and standing room only by the time we arrived. People were piled on the stairs to the balcony and in between all the pews. We were stuck huddling with a huge group by the door and people were still streaming in after the service started. Chaotic and slightly claustrophobic. It was a Catholic service in German and we lasted through the opening blessing, Silent Night, Gloria and the first reading (we left after 15 minutes or so). It was nice, just too crowded and obviously we couldn't understand anything, really.
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| What we imagine the priest looked like, if we could have seen him |
Did Santa come? We awoke to sunshine on Christmas and decided to go on a morning walk on one of the many "wanderweg" trails, which are nicely groomed. There were already tons of people out ice skating, curling, down hill skiing, cross country skiing or walking. The motto of this town seems to be "get up and go" (enjoy the fresh mountain air)!
Langlauf (cross country skiing) is more popular in this area than alpine skiing. We decided to partake in the country's national pastime and rented equipment, which was actually quite cheap at 12 Euro each. We went with "classic" cross country skiing, as opposed to the faster "ski skating" - which also looks harder, in my opinion. The trails are superbly groomed and there are several different routes of varying difficulty. We stuck with an easy 6 km loop (we went around a few times), which had a few downhill bits and proved to be really fun! Thankfully, we never fell. However, our legs are still sore in places that we didn't know muscles existed....owwww.
