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  • Day 36

    Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria

    June 7, 2016 in Austria ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Day 35:

    So we ended our day laying out naked on the roof of a 4 star hotel in Austria. Now let's back up and find out how we got there...

    Today was amping up to be a nice, relaxing, easy travel day on a luxury train from Switzerland to Austria. We picked up a tin of Swiss chocolates, got on the train headed east. We're excited to announce that we travelled through Liechtenstein, by the way. It is a bafflingly small country. It took less than 15 minutes to cross from a train station in Switzerland to one in Austria, not even straight across or at the most narrow point. We didn't see or pass a station inside the country, so we assume you would have to drive, or honestly walk in. Still pretty cool to know we were in the country. Chalk it up to 2 new countries for the day and 9 for the trip!

    We arrived in Innsbruck in the early afternoon after following alpine valleys all morning, being amazed at the beauty. In Innsbruck, we made a beeline to our next airbnb like usual. The host wasn't going to be there and had left a key for us in the saddle pouch of his bike. There was no key. We message him in several different ways trying figure out what happened. Meanwhile, Mother Nature had some threatening plans for us... clouds coming over the mountains, thunder rolling, and the rain started. We were without accommodations, wearing massive bags in a town we don't know anything about, in the rain. A complete 180 from the morning. We needed a place to stay, our host wasn't responding, and its a small town. We check for hotels on Kayak, everything was either booked or 350€ per night. The first few we walked up to were either booked or only had single, bathroom-less rooms available. Then we found a nice, expensive for our budget, but actually relatively inexpensive hotel with one room open. We booked it.

    By then the host had responded assuring us that the key was where he said. Just to clear our collective conscious, we walked back to check. Meanwhile, Mother Nature thought it would be funny to clear up the sky. Completely clear, with cotton candy clouds and birds singing. But we weren't very excited. We confirmed, with pictures, that the key was not there and our host refunded us. This made it a little better. Then, on our way back to the hotel, we picked up 3 giant soft pretzels, 2 roasted half chickens, 2 fancy dinner rolls, a fruity iced tea, and a sparkling lemonade. For 12€. Things were getting better.

    We got back to our hotel room, noticed that we have a mountain view, that the guy in the room next to us was smoking weed, and that there were 2 spas in the hotel. One of the spas said nude, while the other said textile. Of course, we think there's no way that's actually what it means, but Danielle wanted to check it out... then we got to the elevator and she backed out, so we went to the "textile spa". It was super relaxing with a sauna, a steamroom and a lap pool. Then curiosity crept in. So we think, we're on vacation, over 6000 miles from home, and we're still doubting that they mean THAT.

    We head up to the top floor of the hotel and are greeted by a sign basically saying "respect the fact that this is a nude spa, no swimsuits allowed". We see that no one else is there and shyly slide off our swimsuits and put them in a locker, with towels tightly wrapped around us. A quick check to make SURE no one else was there and we were able to look around at what was there... and it was way cooler than the textile spa! There was an aromatherapy steamroom, a Finnish sauna, a regular sauna, an infrared sauna, and a sun deck. We tried out the different saunas, listened to the calming soundtracks, and started to get a little more comfortable. The signs tell you weather to shower or air dry after each different type. So there we were, completely naked, warm with a cool breeze, on the roof of a hotel we shouldn't be staying in, looking up at the snow covered Karwendel Alps.

    Life is really funny sometimes.
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