Grand Hotel Europa ★★★★★

Innsbruck, famous two-time host of the Winter Olympic Games, is almost synonymous with skiing and winter sports, yet is beautiful even after the ski season is over. The striking sight of the lovely mountains and green valleys of the Austrian Alps welcomed us to Innsbruck as we arrived at the Grand Europa Hotel. A modern exterior, resulting from a major refurbishment in 2009, leads into a fresh and modern reception with staff who are welcoming and friendly. The hotel has 117 rooms altogether and our thoughtful daughters had chosen a Superior Room. It had plenty of space and nice touches of luxury like electronic black-out curtains and a small walk-in wardrobe. There were wooden floors, modern rugs and views over the rooftops to the clock tower and comforting touches like a minibar, good-sized desk, air conditioning, flat screen TV, and coffee machine.
As it was getting late, we ate in the hotel that evening. The dining room is a wonderful mixture of different styles in different parts of the restaurant. There is a section with a refectory-style wooden dining table in a large alcove, which is a genuine 200 year old South Tyrolean farm parlour with original wooden panelling and ornaments. Then there is a more ornate room with a large round table for ten people with heraldic-style decorations on the walls. These special areas were obviously for large groups and, since there were only the two of us, we chose the main dining room with smaller tables for two or four in an elegant arch-windowed dining room with flowers and chandeliers. The restaurant was quite busy; it is open to non-residents as well. When the food arrived we could understand why. It was excellent, and a lot of care had obviously been taken over presentation and service. The wine list was predominantly Austrian, which my husband thoroughly approved of, spending some time discussing the best choice to go with our food with the waiter.

Breakfast was very good too, with a wide choice of continental-style breads and pastries, along with more substantial offerings, including eggs any style we wanted. Mine were lightly boiled and, unusually, perfect!

We set out to explore the town which brought back happy memories of wonder at the sheer foreign-ness of everything. Of course it does not seem so foreign now, but lovely all the same. We braved the 20-minute trip on the Hungerburg & Nordkettenbahn cable railway from the city centre and marvelled at the dramatic peaks and huge mountain vistas. Back in civilisation, we warmed ourselves with a hot chocolate and strudel at a city centre café.

Then it was on to find the mystery lake. We found it. We found two in fact, and my husband reluctantly realised that his memory was not quite so clear as he thought; not only was the lake not in the city centre but he could not reliably recall which of the two we visited – Lake Lans or Lake Natters, was the one he had swum in as a carefree child. It didn’t matter; we enjoyed them both, especially the view of the Stubai Glacier from Lake Lans, known by the locals as Lansersee.

Sightseeing around the city and its monuments, a few not-too-strenuous walks among the lowest of the mountain approaches, plenty of great food, and seeing happy childhood memories reawakened; these were my own memories of our Tyrolean trip. It was enhanced by the comforts of the Grand Hotel Europa. We will be saying a big thank-you to our generous and thoughtful daughters.