Innsbruck, Austria

On Saturday we started our day off with a jaunt over to where they held the 1936 and 1940 winter Olympics.  In 1936, when they had the first one, the ski jump was made of wood.  When they found out after 1936 that they were going to have move, the took that one down and made one of cement.  The first one in 1936 had more thank 500,000 visitors to the stadiums.  It is amazing to think that that many people actually came into the little town of Garmisch.  They also built an ice rink that is still in use today with different hockey leagues and teaching people how to ice skate.

 

The entrance into the ice rink

 

Statues by one of the entrances into the stadium

 

The other entrance and their statues

 

The actual jumps

 

This shows how big it is - that is a 747 Boeing jet on the right side of the picture

 

The boys hanging out

 

The view from the Stadium

 

After that we headed into Austria to a town called Innsbruck.  It was our first Christmas Market.  This one was spread out over four different areas.  There were so many different items being sold.  Some beautiful carved pieces, glass pieces, and so many more.  Of course there was the famous gluwien and yes I had a glass!!  I had the white instead of the red.  I like it a little better.  I have now started my gluwein mug collection!!!  I have seen some of my friends collections that are huge, we shall see how big mine gets.  But anyway, there were people everywhere and I thought it was busy.  We bumped into somebody David knew and she said that it was a light day and usually there was three times the amount of people there.  I would for sure lose Michael if there were that many people.  He was fascinated with many things and would just walk to go check it out without seeing where we were.  There are days a leash might be nice, but we haven't lost him yet.  :-)  The boys each picked out a great hat and we had people taking pictures of them, complete strangers the rest of the weekend.  Their pictures will end up in many countries.  The boys did get a little tired of the walking and shopping, not as much fun for them, but lots for me!!!  I found one thing that we bought for ourselves, but we have at least three if not more that we are going to go to this year.  I can't hit them all, but there is always next year!  I did let the boys ride the carousel at the end and they went away happy!!  That and some cotton candy and fresh made pretzels.  :-)  The drive was absolutely beautiful there and back!!  It took us about an hour one way.  The scenery was amazing, we went way up into the mountains and then back down into Innsbruck.  We didn't have one place we drove to that didn't have absolute beauty every step of the way.

 

 

Our first sight of the Christmas market

 

The river that runs through the town - check out the color and the birds flying on the right side

 

We were not sure what this statue is - but we thought it was interesting

 

Walking through the market

 

They had many of these "statues" throughout the market - the boys didn't know if he was real or not until he smiled

 

That dog didn't move the whole time we watched them and it was a long time

                                                          My new look - what do you think?

 

AJ and his new hat

 

Michael and his new hat

 

We saw this on the drive and had to take a picture - we found out it was built as a play castle.  It is now closed down, but it still looks cool!