Today is our toughest travel day of the entire trip, at least on paper. When we planned the routing for this trip, I had no idea that there was not an easy and direct route to get from Pontresina, Switzerland to Innsbruck, Austria. Since Innsbruck is a fairly large town, and the Swiss Rail system is so vast, it seemed like it would be an easy trip to plan, but it was not so.
To travel from Pontresina to Innsbruck, we have to take a train for 1 hour 53 minutes, then a local bus for 30 minutes, then a regional bus for 60 minutes and then another train for 50 minutes to finally get to the Innsbruck Train Station. Complicating the trip was not being able to purchase the tickets for all of these segments through a single company. It took me a while to figure out how far we could go on the SBB Swiss transportation system, before we have to change over to OBB, the Austrian transportation system, and that dictated where we needed to purchase tickets for each segment.
Luckily, we could purchase tickets through the respective phone apps for both transport systems, so we were not going to need to purchase tickets from a machine in a station as we travel. That would have been a nightmare since our connecting time between the first and second bus, where we would need to purchase a separate ticket in Austria through OBB, is just 5 minutes. Figuring out where ticket machines are located, and then actually using one to purchase tickets is not quick or easy.
Since we had our Engandin Card, and based on the map I consulted in the booklet showing what trains the Engandin Card covered, the card already included a portion of the transport distance from Pontresina to a town called Scuol-Tarasp for this trip. I just purchased a ticket from the SBB system from that point forward to the first station we stop at in Austria, in a town called Landeck Zams. Since we leave on a bus from a Swiss town to get there, it was the farthest city that the Swiss SBB system would allow us to purchase tickets to. The last segment, a train into Innsbruck from Landeck Zams, was purchased on the Austrian OBB system since it is entirely in Austria. If none of this is making sense, it has proven my point, it was complicated.
We did all of the ticket purchasing on the two train system phone apps last night so we were ready to go in the morning.
Now for today’s adventure……
We set an alarm for 6:00 AM, and we both got up and started getting ready. We finalized most of our packing and headed to breakfast about 6:55 AM, hoping we would get in a little early. It was not the case, they opened the doors promptly at 7:00 AM, and we headed inside to eat our breakfast. Needless to say, we were the only ones there that early. We ate a quick breakfast and headed back to the room to finish our packing so we could head back down to reception for our 7:30 AM shuttle to the train station, and to check out.
While checking out, the reception person wanted our two room key cards and our two Engandin Cards back. I did not know that the Engandin Card was something we had to turn back in. Apparently there was a CHF 10.00 deposit for the card itself if you did not turn it back in to be reused. Since our card was dated for our stay, I thought it was something we just kept.
I tried to explain to her that we wanted to use them to get to out first train stop, Scuol-Tarasp, but her English was not that good. I had looked at the map of the rail system covered by the Engandin card booklet and thought that it covered the train cost all the way to our first connection in the city of Scuol-Tarasp, but it did not. She tried to explain in her broken English that the Engandin Card only covered us to a certain zone on the train map, not all the way to the end of the line in Scuol-Tarasp. She talked with our driver, who could speak better English and he explained the situation to us in more detail. We could still use the cards, but we needed to turn them in at a train station in order to get our CHF 20.00 deposit back, which they would need to charge to us here if we left with the cards.
Now we knew we were not ticketed for the entire route I had thought the cards covered. It was evident that we would need to change our tickets anyway, so we just turned in the Engandin Cards at the hotel, we were not saving enough for the hassle of dealing with turning them in somewhere else for the deposit.
Our driver loaded up our luggage into the van and we headed to the train station in the hotel shuttle and arrived there at about 7:40 AM. I went ahead and purchased a completely new train/bus ticket, this time from Pontresina to Landeck Zams, as far as we could go on the SBB rail system. Then, I attempted to get a refund on the other tickets we had purchased last night, and that was a little complicated. The tickets were refundable, but on the day of travel it is more complicated, you have to have a valid reason, and it has to be one of the reasons that are selectable in a drop down menu on the phone app. I tried using the “I bought two tickets for the same route” and the app wanted to know the ticket number of the redundant ticket. The “extra” tickets numbers were listed in the app, but I could not make that reason work when I entered them. We apparently did not have a redundant ticket for the exact same route, the new ticket was not the same since it was for a longer route. After trying to figure that our for about 10 minutes, I just selected the “I purchased the ticket for the wrong day” reason for a refund and that worked, and the ticket cost was refunded. It was worth the effort to save the CHF 36.00 for the first set of tickets. (Footnote: After we arrived home and were putting together the overall trip costs, I realized that I had only processed a refund for only one of the two tickets we had purchased. We purchased the two tickets with one transaction, but needed to submit refunds separately, so we did not get the full amount refunded, only half, making a small donation to the Swiss Train system)
Finally, we could relax a little before the train arrived at 8:02 AM. The train was on time, and not very crowded. We had to store our luggage in the seat area, there was no luggage rack in the train car, and the suitcases were too big to fit between opposing orientated seats. The train made several stops, but never was crowded. We did have to show our tickets to the conductor on the train, so we were glad we had gotten them straightened out this morning.
We made it to the end of the train line in Scuol-Tarasp and we were only a couple of minutes late. As we arrived at the small train station, we could see the bus station just outside. As we were walking over to the bus station, our bus arrived and we boarded. This was a local bus, but it had a section in the middle for wheelchairs where we could store our luggage. This bus made quite a few stops before arriving at the end of the line at the Martina, cunfin station (not sure what the “cunfin” means). We were now running about 3 minutes late, but that was not an issue. We pulled into the bus stop at Martina, cunfin, and we were right next to our bus that was taking us to Landeck-Zams. This second bus was a much larger coach, and we stored our luggage underneath, which was much easier than getting it up into the bus.
We left a few minutes late. There were only the two of us and two other people on the entire bus, plus our driver. This bus made side trips from the highway into several small towns along the way. It was amazing to see the driver navigate the large bus through some of the narrow, winding streets in the towns.
We arrived at the Landeck-Zams Train Station just a few minutes late, but still had about 25 minutes to catch our train into Innsbruck. We visited the restrooms and then headed out to our platform. We looked at the train diagram board posted on the platform to find out what part of the platform was designated for the location the second class cars when the train arrived. This was a long train, at least 15 coaches long, so we needed to be sure which alphabetical section of our Platform we needed to be on to be able to board a second class coach. The Platform was divided into sections A through F and we needed to be in C-F for the second class coaches.
Train to Innsbruck – Almost There
The train arrived a couple of minutes late, a first for our travels in Switzerland, oops, no wonder, we were now in Austria. We boarded the long train, and the coach we selected at random was fairly crowded, but we found some seats at the far end, across the aisle from each other. Once again, we had to straddle our luggage on the floor in the legroom area for the seats, there was not any storage racks for large luggage on the train coach that we had seen. Everyone else also had their luggage with them at their seats, so apparently, we were not doing anything unusual.
We arrived in Innsbruck close to on-time, and then headed outside to the bus terminal to catch a bus to the Innsbruck Airport to pickup our rental car. This last bus was also covered by our Austrian SBB ticket we had purchased last night. The bus arrived about 15 minutes after we got outside and we boarded. It was not crowded, and there was an ample storage area for luggage since this bus was heading to the airport for its final stop, and designed for travelers with luggage. We were the only passengers left on the bus when we arrived at the airport and we thought that to be a little strange. Innsbruck is not that large of a city, but certainly big enough for the airport to be fairly busy at this time of day.
The bus stopped in front of the terminal and we got off. When we tried to go inside the terminal to try and find the rental car desks, the doors to the terminal were locked. There was a small paper sign on the door indicating that the entire airport was closed for three days for runway maintenance. I had never seen or even heard of an entire airport being closed, and we certainly had no prior notification of the closure. We asked our bus driver, who was still standing outside the bus we had arrived on, waiting for his scheduled departure time, where we could find the rental car companies. He pointed to a parking garage across the street from the terminal, and sure enough, a large sign for “Rental Cars” was on the outside.
We headed to the Avis/Budget counter inside the garage to pick up our car. We were about an hour early for the pick-up time I had scheduled for 2:00 PM, and apparently our car was not yet ready. That was strange. Since there were no arriving or departing passengers taking or dropping off rental cars at the closed airport, they must have been bringing all of the cars here from another location, based on reservation times.
We asked if there was somewhere nearby to eat lunch while we were waiting for our car to arrive, and they told us about a restaurant about 4 blocks away. We left our locked large suitcases behind the Avis counter and headed to get a bite to eat.
The restaurant looked small from the entrance, but was quite large inside once we went through the entry area. We were seated at a table outside in a covered patio area, and we looked over the extensive menu. We were lucky to have a great waiter, who could speak some English. The food menu was quite sophisticated, and probably more than we needed for lunch. I ordered a version of Cordon Bleu made with thinly sliced pork, and Stephanie ordered pork medallions wrapped in bacon with gravy and a side of pasta. Both meals included a mixed greens salad. Stephanie had a glass of Rose wine with lunch, but I opted out since we would be driving in a bit, and alcohol limits in Europe are extremely low. Plus, we were driving a foreign car in a foreign city, I needed to be fully alert.
While we were eating, the Avis representative called my cell phone and said our car was ready. We finished lunch and headed back to the Avis desk. Unfortunately, there was another group getting their rental car ahead of us, and rental car processing in Europe is quite a slow process, everything has to be entered manually, even if it is already on a rental voucher.
We finally got our rental agreement filled out and signed and we went out to load up the car. We had rented a Peugeot 308 Wagon, but ended up with a similar class car, an Opal Astra Wagon with a diesel engine. They were similar enough in class, but the Peugeot 308 Wagon we had rented in Italy in 2019 was much nicer inside.
We specifically wanted a wagon type of car because there is a nice large storage area in the back that is covered for storing our suitcases. Since it is covered, we do not have to worry about the luggage being visible if we are parked somewhere sightseeing, and away from the car, and have our luggage with us.
We decided to try and find a grocery store in Innsbruck before heading up into the mountains right outside of Innsbruck to our rental apartment. The apartment is located in a small town named Igls. Google Maps showed that there was a Spar Grocery store about 1.5 miles away, so we used Google Maps on Stephanie’s cell phone to provide us directions. We did not exactly make it there on the first try. First, we missed one turn and had to go around the block, so to speak, and try again. On our trip around the block, we saw there was a parking garage right beside the store, but we missed that entrance as we passed by on our second “lap”. Finally, we circled around once more and turned into the parking garage entrance. There was a direct entrance to the grocery from the garage, we just had to go up an elevator one floor to get into the store.
We bought some supplies and something to eat for a light dinner tonight since we had such a large lunch earlier. We put the groceries in the car and headed to our apartment in Igls.
Our Apartment in Igls – Bottom Floor
Once again, we had a little difficulty getting there on the first attempt, the small road near the apartment was hard to see, and we just missed the turn. We finally arrived after turning around. We parked and tried to go inside the lobby of the apartment complex, but the door was locked. A man heard us trying to get inside and came to the door and let us in. He told us he did not have a key with him to the rental office, so he had to go upstairs for the key while we waited in the lobby. We finally got checked in and went into our apartment on the first floor. It was a nice apartment, and it had a doorway out into a garden area, but being on the first floor, there was no balcony.
The apartment was roomy inside and well furnished. The only thing we found an issue with was that we only had two coffee pods for the coffee maker, so we would hopefully see someone in the rental office to ask about getting a couple more.
Small Covered Underground Pool at Apartment
While we were coming back from exploring the pool/sauna area underneath the building, we ran into the lady in charge of rentals at the office right outside our front door and asked her for more coffee pods since there were only two. She told us that these first two were “complimentary”, but others were Euro 0.50 each. First we said we were OK, and would make do with the two we had, a little shocked that there was a charge, and also by the cost. But then we offered to purchase one pod, not wanting to look like we were shocked at the fact there was a charge, which we actually were. It seemed like a trivial item to charge for, and I am sure we could probably get them cheaper at the grocery, but we did not need a large package of pods, and we needed a specific brand to fit the machine, which the store may not have.
Gardens at Igls Apartment
We then explored the outside garden area and then spent some time inside just relaxing with a glass of wine. It had been a long and stressful travel day, but had turned out better than we expected.
We fixed a light dinner and then spent some time trying to figure out a plan for tomorrow. As part of this apartment rental, we each received an Innsbruck Welcome Card, which gives us free city transportation while we are here. There is a bus stop a few blocks from the apartment, and the bus into the Innsbruck City Center only takes about 15 minutes. Best of all, it runs every 10 minutes.
We had good wi-fi here and used that to look online at some information for the Grossglockner High Alpine Highway, which we will drive in a couple of days from now, trying to put a good plan together for that experience since we had not fully developed a plan for that before we left.
We showered and headed to bed about 10:00 PM.
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