Innsbruck  to Augsburg
Monday 19 December 

The highlight of today’s journey from Innsbruck to Augsburg was the beautiful snow-covered landscape of the Bavarian Alps. Even in Innsbruck, as we walked to the station this morning, we could see a light dusting of snow along some parts of the road so we left that city with hope of seeing more on our journey.

We departed Innsbruck on a Regional Express train at 8.38am and arrived in Augsburg, Germany at 12.05pm, after changing trains at Weilhelm. Within the first hour we were passing through forests with patchy snow, and from the Tirol and through the Alps, especially around Garmish-Partenkirchen, there was a heavy covering of snow. We are now hopeful that there will be snow at Fussen and Neuschwanstein on Christmas Day!

In Augsburg we are staying at Airbnb accommodation provided by Klaus, an architect who lives upstairs while we have the spacious ground floor ‘cottage’. We stayed here in 2015 so it felt a bit like coming home! We had brought Christmas presents for him (a Victoria calendar and a knitted possum Christmas decoration which delighted him).

After some lunch at a local café we walked into town to visit the Golden Hall (Goldener Saal) at the Rathaus. It is a huge stunningly beautiful hall, with a golden ceiling, painted walls and a marble floor. Built in 1615, it was restored to its original glory between 1980 and 2007.

From there we went to the Christmas market and had a lovely time soaking up the atmosphere without buying very much. We enjoyed an apple punch each and bought the decorative mugs they came in. By 3.30pm it was starting to get dark and the Christmas lights were coming on in the city streets. We did a bit of supermarket shopping and then returned home for a dinner of nasi goreng while watching our first TV news since leaving home.