(Innsbruck, Austria)
After three wonderful and relaxing months in Croatia, we were ready to move on to our next location. We had decided early in the spring that we would return to Austria this winter in order to take advantage of the snow and get in some good snowboarding time. We have been really excited about returning to Austria, since our last visit to Innsbruck was one of our favorite stops so far.
We needed to stop in Zürich to pick up a few things, and I began planning a way to get easily to Austria from Croatia via Switzerland. We have used nearly every reasonable means of transportation so far – plane, train, bus, and ferry, but opted this time to travel by car.
People do travel one-way internationally in Europe by rental car, but (as we discovered) you end up paying a substantial fee for not returning within the same country. Apparently, they send someone to your destination who takes the car and drives it back. You end up paying for all that additional time and effort. In the end, just about any other means of travelling on this leg of our trip would have been less expensive. It also would have been a lot less interesting.
Our route took us through a small section of Slovenia, a good portion of northern Italy, half of Switzerland, and a fair portion of Austria. The total trip was more than 1300 kilometers, or slightly more than 800 miles. For our American readers, it’s roughly the equivalent of San Francisco to Seattle, New York to Savannah, the entire width of Texas on I-10, or eight times around our island of O`ahu.
At least the road signs along the way were nearly consistent between countries.
Driving in Croatia was pleasant. The roads are very well maintained (thanks EU) and people are generally good drivers. Italy also has fantastic roads, but the driving is a little more difficult. There are many, many trucks on the road and all the other drivers can’t agree on a speed. I ended up changing lanes every 30 seconds and couldn’t use the cruise control.
We spent a night in the Lake Como area at a really fantastic B&B called Vistalago. I can’t recommend this place highly enough and I hope that we are able to come back and stay with them during the summer (and for more than a single night).
Between Lake Como and Innsbruck, the drive was great – roads and drivers alike. I think we drove through more tunnels in one day than I had in my entire life prior to this day. We got to experience the 57km (35.5 mi) long Gotthard Base Tunnel, all the tiny tunnels as you go around Lake Lugano and Lake Lucerne, and the plethora of tunnels on the highways through the Alps. The roads rarely changed grade extensively, but instead they just tunnel where they need to and send the road straight through.
If we had taken a bus, we would only get to experience one side of this trip. If we had taken a train, we probably would have been reading or working instead of looking outside. Driving was a great experience, and I hope we get to do it again. Perhaps not a one-way rental, however.
We are very much looking forward to our time in Innsbruck. And this year the the snow is plentiful, and the weather is very cold. Just the experience we need after spending so many years in Hawai`i.
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