The overnight fog had come back this morning and we couldn’t see the church again but we decided to head out to the ski jump anyway as the forecast was for it to clear. We decided to take the tram out to the Ski Jump as the tourist bus doesn’t start until 10.30, unfortunately we didn’t work out which way we wanted to go so just jumped on the first one that was the right number but it was going in the wrong direction so we had a little tour of the lower suburbs of Innsbruck which was actually quite interesting, then we got to the monastery at the bottom of the ski slope. We walked up to the panorama and although we hadn’t originally intended to go in we did and it was quite interesting, it gave you an overview of the various battles between Austria, Germany, the Tyrol regions and the Italians! It would seem that one of the most famous battles was in 1809 and they seem to have built the ski jump on the battlefield! Also the popular view of the colourful tunics worn by the Tyrol Army seems to have been an early 20th century popularisation rather than based on any facts, however they did seem to take a couple of women carrying beer barrels into battle with them! We had intended to take the panoramic walkway from there but couldn’t find it so we just continued up the hill to the ski jump. Our first impression was that the landing area seems very narrow, obviously it is high but it really doesn’t seem very wide and the stadium which is home to one of the four hills tournaments actually seems quite small but they did say that you can fit 28,000 people in what is quite a small amphitheatre so it is probably very noisy when a competition is on. We were able to take the lift up to the top of the ski jump which has an observation deck and restaurant, you can also walk out onto the gangway that the ski jumpers use when taking position which really gives a view of just how high it is! This stadium was opened in September 2002 and the tower is 50 m which is 250m above Innsbruck and the in run is 98m although it doesn’t look that long. We walked round the whole complex then planed to walk back down to the tram station but the tourist bus was at the panorama stop so we jumped on that instead. We got off at the Triumphant Arch which we had heard about yesterday when we walked round the Imperial Palace, the side that you enter the city from is the one that celebrates the wedding and the side that you leave the city by was decorated by Mari Teresa in memory of her husband. We walked the length of Mari Theresa Street stopping for lunch on route. Then this afternoon we took the bus out to Ings which is on the other side of the valley from Innsbruck, this is another ski resort and the houses look a lot more like the traditional Tyrol houses. It looked like the cloud had completely cleared so we decided to head back up the funicular railway for one final look at the valley, unfortunately when we got up there the low level cloud was still handing across the town so the view wasn’t any better than yesterday but it was nice to go up all the same. We came back down and decided to head back to the hotel for a relax before going out this evening.
