The Innsbruck Card

The Innsbruck Card was great and made our holiday so easy. It cost us 35 euro each (kids were free) and it covered pretty much everything for our whole stay in Innsbruck - transport and attractions, so all we really had to buy was our food. The main things we used it for were on the cable car, a sight seeing bus tour (which was pretty lame compared to some others we have been on!), a {self guided} tour of Ambras Castle and a visit to Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal World).

The museum in Ambras Castle had some great stuff. It was freezing in there though - nearly colder inside than out!

I really find it hard to believe that all of this stuff was actually made to be used - and not just to be put on display in some fancy building! The kid-sized armour actually made me feel a bit sad.

I loved this door handle - there was one on the entrance to our hotel as well.

Do you think the dude that hand carved all this really knew that it would go on display one day and have hundreds of people looking at it!? I doubt it! Pretty cool really - like most things you find in a museum I suppose!

Hope these guys didn't mind that I had no idea who they were!

This was a model of all of the castle - we went in most of it I think, but didn't get to visit the grounds cause it was just too cold to be bothered.

Our trip out to Crystal World started with us waiting for a tram to catch down to the train station so that we could get on the bus!! We didn't even check the weather forecast (why would you - because what else is it going to say other than mighty cold) so we don't even know what the temperature was while we were in Innsbruck but we wore our thermals everyday and it was still pretty cold - somewhere in the minus's I'm thinking.

{Waiting for the tram - wearing ski clothes still because they were the warmest things!}

On the bus! The girls were giggling all the way out there and loved sitting up the front.

We weren't really too sure what to expect at Crystal World, there was all sorts of modern art around outside and I'm thinking it would have looked really nice at night in the dark too - so at 4.00pm!

The main gallery is built under this big hill - you can see the doors on the side - some of the waterfall was frozen so it created some icicles! They looked pretty cool!

Emily not wanting to get a photo with me and Leilani - I think she just wanted one of herself!

{Icicles!}

It was really interesting inside - it was kind of like a modern art museum - displaying crystals in all sorts of weird ways.

This was one of my favourites - the lights changed colour continuously and made the art look completely different each time - even though it was the same picture.

You can see most of the exhibition here (worth a look - the website is really good!). It was really worth it going out to Crystal World and I'm so glad we went - everyone (including the kids) really enjoyed it. And the best part was finishing in the Swarovski shop!!! I asked Mick if he had any spare money.... but I didn't get an answer!!!??

The girls rested on the glitter couch for a while whilst I had a look around!

{Dopey was only 120 Euro!}

The mountains from Crystal World.

It was quite funny on the way back - the girls were no longer sitting up in their seats full of energy - but fell asleep about 5 minutes into the journey! (It was about a 30 minute drive).