Our short stay in Basel had come to an end. Between the weather and sick kids we hadn’t seen everything we wanted but it was onto the next part of the holiday – our Austrian (hopefully) white Christmas. We had been staying just across the border in an Airbnb in St Louis, France, while Di, Max and Rene were in the Movenpick hotel in Basel, Switzerland, right near the train station.
As we’d gone to bed the previous night it had been snowing, but it had mostly melted by this morning. We woke up to another rainy day in Basel and 2 degrees. The Wuth contingent had freshly baked French croissant that Lorraine had procured, due to being on the French side of the border and having an array of patisseries within a kilometre.
We were out of our apartment by 8.30am and we had a wet walk with bags the almost kilometre across the border to catch the tram into the HBF. The Basel HBF is a beautiful building, and despite it being another somewhat miserable day I did have to get a couple of photos of it.
When we had arrived 2 days earlier, I was quite the fan of the giant chandelier. Very understated 😉
After I had deposited the bags with the rest of our traveling group, I did walk back over to the Movenpick which has the Drittes Tier Dragon sculpture in the square outside the hotel. Thomas Schütte’s 3.5 metre-tall bronze sculpture is a fantasy creature, composed of various kinds of animals and snorts steam like a dragon. When we arrived on the 21st we were dragging bags and I had a sick Zinnia so had to return today for a quick photo!
Back to the warmth of the train station and we met up with Max, Di and Rene. We were all ready for our long day of travel to Austria. The kids (and also most of the adults) were all excited about our long awaited white Christmas. The forecast had been for snow in Innsbruck and we had our fingers tightly crossed.
A snowy departure……
Our first train left at 9.30am and took us to Zurich. It was looking good for some snowy weather as not long after leaving Basel we were seeing plenty of snow and we watched it fluttering past the windows.
Soren was feeling a bit better than the day before but still not eating. Zinnia, having been rather unwell leaving the Swiss Alps, and arriving into Basel was feeling quite chipper today and knocking back croissants and hot chocolates.
Today it was Astrid’s turn to be struck down by the virus. She went downhill on the train and we had to find the bathrooms in a hurry where she proceeded to empty stomach contents in the first of many countries for the day.
The rest of the group were enjoying the picturesque scenery out the windows.
After 50 minutes we arrived into an equally snow Zurich. We quickly perfected the art of getting 9 people and 13 bags, plus hand luggage off a train and onto the next one quickly (yes Max has bought a lot of Santas at markets already!). Other people just looked at us and our bags and went to another door.
The Arlberg pass and seat bingo
The next train, through to Innsbruck was total chaos. It was running through to Budapest over many hours and people were on and off at every stop. It was just before Christmas and everyone was in a hurry to get to their Christmas destination. When booking the trains, months earlier, we’d managed to get reserved first class seats for Lorraine, Max, Di and Rene but for our family of 5 we had first class tickets for the long and scenic leg, but weren’t able to reserve seats for some reason. This isn’t a problem…. usually. Except when the train is busy.
Of course today there were more people than seats, bags everywhere and people all in the wrong seats. I spent half an hour with bags in the doorway vestibule, the kids in different cabins and we eventually found enough seats in first….. although were split over carriages for the entire trip. Even the other 4, who had reserved seats kept having people sit in them and had to constantly turf them out. The non-first cabins were even worse with people packed in aisles and absolutely no seats.
Astrid continued to feel unwell and was wishing the trip away. There were quite a few bathroom visits. At least the snow out the window was distracting her somewhat.
The rest of us thoroughly enjoyed the stunning scenery. There was plenty of snow all the way from Zurich. Soon we were heading into the gorgeous Arlberg Pass through the mountains, which reaches an altitude of just under 1800m and passes many cute villages.
We spent the whole trip split between 2 carriages shuffling seats at every stop. Luckily, everyone (bar Astrid) was enjoying watching the scenery and fluffy snow. The Wifi was very dodgy on this particular leg and the Austrian conductor did jokingly say that some of the passenger should stop complaining and just look out the window at the beautiful views. She wasn’t wrong!
We’d done this route in reverse back in 2016 – heading from Innsbruck through to Zurich. It was scenic then too and definitely one of the amazing rail trips you can do.
Hello Innsbruck!
We arrived into Innsbruck a bit late at almost 2.30pm. Astrid very glad to see the end of the train. With a group of 9 for Christmas we’d managed to find an Airbnb house with enough rooms and bathrooms up in the mountain village of Igls, not far from Innsbruck. We’d visited Igls briefly in our 2016 trip and we thought it would be a good spot to hang out. It’s also at 900m elevation, a fair bit higher than the 574m of Innsbruck, so had a greater chance of snow at this time of year.
When we arrived into Innsbruck there wasn’t a huge amount of snow in the city area, but plenty on the surrounding mountains. We got our mountain of luggage up the mountain, and found our not so little house. We had plenty of snow already so it will definitely be a white Christmas.
Astrid was still not feeling well and wasn’t keen on Christmas markets and dinner and wanted to have a rest. We left her to retire to bed with her phone, and the rest of us head into the Innsbruck old town for some Christmas markets, glühwein and gently fluttering snow!
It was a short walk to the ‘J bus’ back into Innsbruck. The bus trip up and down the mountain was extremely scenic, although mildly terrifying at the speeds they were doing in the snow!
Our first Austrian markets of the trip…
Pretty soon we were back in the Innsbruck Old Town. All keen for our first Austrian markets of the trip.
It was just getting dark and only 1 degree (feels like minus 3) so it was time for our first Austrian glühweins, with a kinderpunsch for the kids.
The lights were coming on and there were new Santas for Max to purchase. Our tummy’s were rumbling so it was hard to resist the strudels on offer and we had to try one.
After the obligatory market purchases and then it was off to find dinner. The markets were already getting busy and the Old Town was buzzing.
The famous Golden Roof was lit up nicely by the lights of the Christmas markets.
The smells of market food were definitely making us hungry. People were keen for somewhere warm to sit down so it was off to find a restaurant before they all got too busy.
A hearty Austrian dinner….
Despite it being barely 5.30pm many places were already full in the Old Town area. We found a local restaurant happy to put up with our Aussie rif-raf. As a bonus they had excellent schnitzels and käsespätzle and giant beers of course!
Poor old Astrid did miss out on a pretty good meal. Not that she was remotely up to eating!
… and then it snowed!
By the time we finished dinner and emerged outside back into the street there was a heap of snow falling from the sky. Cue a lot of excitement from everyone. It was shaping up to be a very white Christmas.
We had to stop past some supermarket for supplies for our group of always starving minions (and Max). By the time we were heading back towards the bus stop there was a good coating of snow through the Christmas markets.
Our bus ride up the mountain was rather winding and with all that food in our bellies it was a bit adventurous. As we arrived into Igls, the snow was bucketing down on our walk back to the house. We were all coated in a thick layer by the time we got back. Us strange Aussies think this is awesome, much to the amusement of other Europeans who couldn’t understand our joy.
Our walk on the way back was minus 1 and we all concluded this temperature with snow was much more fun than the weather yesterday in Basel with the rain. It was definitely a better day today….. although Astrid did not agree!
Up next…
It was Christmas Eve in Innsbruck. We had snow, so much snow! A day of exploring beautiful Innsbruck with snowy vistas and some Strudel followed by sledding. We then had our much anticipated Christmas dinner, which was certainly an experience!
