The Berkeley Guides:
Berkeley Guide to Europe:
Austria:
Innsbruck
Visitors to Innsbruck should be prepared for a lot of neck strain. Everywhere you go in the city, your eyes are constantly being drawn upward to icy white peaks set against the deep blue of the sky. Not that there's nothing to see at ground level. A focal point of the Austrian Renaissance, imperial residence off and on following the coronation of Maximilian I in 1493, and political capital of the quintessentially Alpine region of Tirol, Innsbruck came to world attention in 1964 and again in 1976 as host to the Winter Olympics. Since then, travelers have woken up to the fact that this is one of the most beautifully situated and exciting cities in Austria. Traditional Tyrolean culture, evident in the excellent Tirol Folk Museum and in the streets of the almost completely preserved Altstadt, is supplemented by an opera house, a major university, and frequent, if slightly wacky, events like candle-carrying scuba divers in the Inn River or a carefully choreographed concert using all the church bells in the Inn Valley.
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