Innsbruck
travel guides

Innsbruck is the capital of Tyrol and Austria's fifth-largest city, with about 132,000 residents living at 574 metres on the River Inn. The Nordkette wall of the Karwendel Alps rises directly behind the old town to Hafelekarspitze at 2,334 metres, and Patscherkofel closes the valley to the south at 2,246 metres. The medieval centre around the Goldenes Dachl, Maria-Theresien-Straße and the Hofburg is compact and walkable.

Few cities put an old town and high-alpine terrain this close together. Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976 and the first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The Nordkettenbahnen funicular and cable cars run from Congress station in the city centre up to Seegrube and Hafelekar in around twenty minutes. The Olympia SkiWorld network gathers nine ski areas, among them Patscherkofel, Axamer Lizum, Kühtai, Schlick 2000 and the Stubai Glacier, into roughly 300 kilometres of piste linked by free ski buses.

Innsbruck Airport (INN) sits under 5 kilometres from the centre, which is unusual for an Alpine city, and Munich Airport (MUC) is about 180 kilometres away with direct rail and shuttle links. The Brenner Pass into Italy is 30 kilometres south. Summer is a full second season, with hiking in the Karwendel Nature Park and via ferrata routes above the city. Prices sit below Kitzbühel or St Anton and above the eastern Alps.