Great outdoors ... above the clouds on a flying fox.
With white knuckles, Rob Dunlop hurls himself at Innsbruck's summer adventures.
Innsbruck doesn't so much hang on to its past glories as an Winter Olympic Games host, it's more of a steely refusal to let go - even at the height of summer.
So it's no surprise that many of Innsbruck's best experiences are framed by winter sports and its summer equivalents. This is a city where office workers alternate between visits to ski slopes and hiking trails during their lunch breaks, and where the best views in town are from an Olympic ski jump.
This is a sports-mad city in the middle of the Alps. By foot, bike and ski, its residents frolic in a natural playground wedged between mountains that reach 2000 metres and higher.
It's the middle of summer and I'm keen to join some typical seasonal activities. But I'm already looking towards the finishing line - Austria claims to be the birthplace of apres-ski and I wonder about its summer version.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I must first go the distance. Like on an Olympic bobsleigh run.
And so I head to a carved landscape above the pretty village of Igls, about five kilometres from the city centre, to get a helmet.
While the instructions are easy enough to follow - "keep your head still" - it's the auxiliary information that's not so easy to digest: "You'll be careening down a 1200-metre concrete track in a tubular metal sleigh on wheels being helmed by an Austrian Olympian. Enjoy!"
Enjoy as I might, the only thing I can't get my head around, quite literally, is my single instruction. Foolishly, I'm lulled by the gentle start; four of us are snug in an oversized metal billycart and we're charmingly pushed off by hand. Yet I cannot keep my head still. As we hurtle down the mountain at 115km/h, my helmeted head bangs from side to side against padded metal bars.
After our two-minute descent, my grimace is mistaken for exultation. I'm congratulated and, with shaking hands, I accept a certificate of completion autographed by my Olympian "pilot".
But the day is still young. A flying-fox apparatus requires me to be strung up on a cable and dispatched from a platform to admire the city skyline for about 100 metres. The performance is only a tad ungraceful, aided by not losing sight of the ground below. I'm sure the view is lovely.
My next Innsbruck initiation is a stroll around Patscherkofel mountain, under the guidance of instructors from the Innsbruck Alpine School. Where else in the world, I ask myself, can one find a free walking tour run by professionals?
In 1963, the small school began tours of the Austrian Alps. These days it runs 40 local tours and has developed more than 300 hiking and trekking tours across five continents.
Wolfgang, our guide, leads us around the five-kilometre circular Patscherkofel trail, perched 2000 metres above sea level, accessible by a three-kilometre cable-car ride.
The panorama of Innsbruck is on full display, a different perspective around every corner. Mist shrouding centuries-old pine tree gives way to carpets of alpine grass with wildflowers of vibrant blue, yellow and white.
Even in high summer there's ice clinging to rocky crevices. Friendly local walkers, some carrying children, pass us. A mountain hut adorned with animal skins, guns and musical instruments, and selling hearty food and beer, is a kooky but welcome distraction.
After a day of such frenetic alpine activity, the apres promise must be fulfilled. But we need a venue. While the Bergisel Ski Jump Stadium, used for the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympic Games, has been refashioned into a contemporary monolith with heartskipping views and a restaurant, the more intimate 360° wine bar is chosen, atop the elegant shopping centre, Rathausgalerien, which looks out over mediaeval rooftops. Make mine with a splash of elderflower.
And because the summer days are so long, Innsbruck's old town is still on show at 9pm - 800 years of history expressed in a blend of Gothic and baroque architectural styles and colours, with 3000 gold-plated copper tiles shimmering on the 15th-century "Golden Roof" of a former royal residence.
Alfresco apres activities extend along cobbled laneways and squares and further up in mountain-hut restaurants and bars.
At S'Culinarium, the city's premier wine emporium and bar, there's the razzle dazzle of the sparkling white wine served with gold flakes. And the competition between schnapps distilleries is fierce.
This is how I end a fine day in Innsbruck: perched on a stool along a cobbled laneway bathed in dusk's summer glow, with a twice-distilled apricot schnapps in hand - apres sledding, flying fox and hiking.
Rob Dunlop travelled courtesy of the Austrian National Tourist Office and Emirates.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Munich, in Germany, is the closest major international airport to Innsbruck, about 165 kilometres or two hours' drive. Emirates has a fare for about $2110 low-season return, including tax, from Sydney or Melbourne to Dubai (14hr), then Munich (about 6hr). You could fly to Munich and out of Vienna or Zurich on Emirates.
Touring there
A free hiking program by the Innsbruck Alpine School operates every summer for travellers staying in Innsbruck and its villages. Free three- to five-hour hiking tours with a professional guide include hotel pick-up and use of boots and rucksacks. Tours are available May 30-October 26.
The Innsbruck Card is great value, offering access to public transport, lifts and funicular railways up the mountains and entry to the city's museums, galleries, castle and other attractions. Priced from €29 ($40) for 24 hours.
Staying there
The Schloss Hotel, part of the Relais & Chateaux group, is a delightfully kooky, family-owned hotel with 18 rooms and suites in the village of Igls. Double rooms from €100 a person including breakfast; see www.schlosshotel-igls.com.
More information
Innsbruck will bathe in more winter games glory when it hosts the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in January 2012, see innsbruck2012.com; for Innsbruck tourism, see innsbruck.info.
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