Alps of Austria and Italy: Travel Details
This is a quick and handy source for details on the sights, hotels, tour guides and restaurants featured in the "Alps of Austria and Italy" show. For much more (and updates), see this year's edition of Rick Steves' Italy and Rick Steves' Germany & Austria guidebooks.
Fallerschein
Easy for drivers and a special treat for those who may have been Kit Carson in a previous life, this extremely remote log-cabin village is a 4,000-foot-high, flower-speckled world of s er ene slopes and cowbells. Thunder storms roll down the valley like it's God's bowling alley, but the pint-size church on the high ground, blissfully simple in a land of Baroque, seems to promise that this huddle of houses will survive, and the river and breeze will just keep flowing. The couples sitting on benches are mostly Austrian vacationers who've rented cabins here. Many of them, appreciating the remoteness of Fallerschein, are having affairs.
Gasthof Badl
Gasthof Badl is a big, comfortable, friendly place run by sunny Frau Steiner and her daughter, Sonja. I like its convenience, peace, big breakfast, easy telephone reservations, and warm welcome (25 rooms, Sb-€38, Db-€59-63, Tb-€85, Qb-€107-110, elevator, € 6.50/day rental bikes for guests for fine riv er side path, laundry €7/load, Innbrücke 4, tel. 05223/56784, fax 05223/567-843, www.badl.at, info@badl.at). Hall's kitchens close early, but Gasthof Badl's restaurant serves excellent dinners until 21:30 (€7-11 entrées, closed Tue). They stock the essential TI brochures and maps of Hall and Innsbruck in English.
Walderalm Farm
A cluster of three dairy farms with 70 cows that share their meadow with the clouds. The cows ramble along ridge-top lanes surrounded by cut-glass peaks. The ladies of the farms serve soup, sandwiches, and drinks (very fresh milk in the afternoon) on rough plank tables. Below you spreads the Inn River Valley and, in the distance, tourist-filled Innsbruck.
Reifenstein
For one of Europe's most intimate looks at medieval castle life, let the friendly lady of Reifenstein (Frau Blanc) show you around her wonderfully preserved castle. She leads tours on the hour, in Italian and German, squeezing in whatever English she can (€5, open Easter-Oct; tours Sat-Thu at 10:30, 14:00, and 15:00; mid-July-mid-Sept also at 16:00, closed Fri, picnic spot at drawbridge, tel. 0472-765-879).