Awesome Alpine Adventure: Day 2-Munich to Innsbruck

 DAY 2   Part 1  MUNICH TO INNSBRUCK
Favorite image of this post:

I must admit that the first day of traveling was not very exciting - but don't give up yet.  It only gets better.  Because we flew to Munich Germany.
There we met up with the others in our group and then motor coached/bussed to Innsbruck Austria.  We traveled from Munchen Germany via route 11 till it turned into route 177 in Austria and 177 connected to A-12 which took us into Innsbruck Austria and where we needed to go.
I love taking pictures and I had plenty of time to take pictures on the ride to Innsbruck.  Unfortunately because we were on a bus sometimes there was a lot of reflection going on and I would get an image like this:

Which ruined it for being used.  I found that if I put the camera or my cellphone right next to the window I could cut out the reflections but the trouble was I could only take straight shots.  As so as I would tilt it just so slightly to get a top of a mountain or such then the reflections would come back.  Some reflections weren't so bad and I decided I would still keep them anyway.
Then the otherthing I found so frustrating is that they like putting up walls along the  freeways.  So frequently I the only thing I would see was things like this.

 Then there were other places where the trees were right next to the road and even though there were gorgeous mountain shots in between the breaks in the trees I would try to take an image and end up with the trees.   Like this:

I love trees and these were nice trees but they weren't the image I was trying to capture.
Then there was a time when I felt like even nature was trying to throttle me by using the clouds to prevent my views

Even with all of these hindrances I still was able to get a few good images.
Here they are:

 At first things were pretty flat, and typical as to what I would see around where I was.  The farms would look different in that the roofs were usually different.

 Then there started to be some relief. 

 And more relief.  I tried taking pictures but most of them did not turn out to much glare/reflections from the windows.  The main thing I could tell was that we were in some fertile flood plan and that was why there were so many farms in the area.

 This picture doesn't do justice but the wildflowers that were in bloom were gorgeous.  Most of the time we were traveling too fast to get good photos of them.

 I kept on looking from one side of the bus to the other, not wanting to miss anything.  I was relieved to see that it was pretty much the same scenery on both sides of the bus.

The more mountains I saw the more excited I got.  

 Then I saw this quarry in the side of the mountain and I could tell I was definitely in a different place.  I wished we could get closer so I could determine exactly what they were quarrying.  My guess is its probably limestone or marble.

Then I actually did get to see an actual outcrop.  But we were traveling so fast I really couldn't determine for sure what it was.  I kept to my first inclination of Limestone.  

Here's another quarry- I noticed that these rocks seemed whiter than the others.  

We started to get higher and higher into the mountains.

I thought this was so different seeing that house up high like that.  I'm sure it was built for added protection and the view must have been exquisite.
     
      After awhile I noticed we were following a river.  The vegetation was high it made seeing it difficult even though we were up high in a bus.  

 People started to comment on how light colored green it was.  So different from the rivers at home.  We're used to brown/red colored water.  As I looked at it I remembered that glacier lakes usually had that color to them too.  I quickly made the connection that this river must be glacier feed waters.
   The glaciers grind the rocks into powders and then that fine particulate matter is carried away in suspension. 

Here's some more views of the river.  

 Finally we crossed a bridge and I could get a better view of the river.

I just liked this photo too.  The one thing I did notice was that the banks appeared to be full.  I had heard that in other parts of Germany they had been experiencing flooding and so I wasn't surprised to see this river to be so full.   Even though it was full it did not appear to be overflowing its banks. It did seem to be flowing swiftly and I didn't know if this was normal for that river or not. I was curious as to what river it was.  I think its was the river Inn but I'm not positive about that. I was so excited to be traveling here I didn't pay attention as to what roads we had taken to get to where we were.  I was just enjoying the scenery along the way.   And with views like this it was hard not to enjoy it. 

 I just wished it was a clearer day but it was still pretty spectacular.

 The higher we got the more clouds we started to encounter.  They started to obstruct the views of the mountains. 

I could tell we were getting close to Innsbruck when I started to see building like this and all the power lines and railway going to it. 

I did so enjoy going on this ride because it was so different from anything I'm used to seeing.  I live  in a state where the elevation is about 200 ft in most places and it's pretty flat through out it. Seeing mountains was so exciting for me. 

NB:  I was taking photos with both my camera and my cellphone.  The cellphone was better at taking photo's quicker and capturing what I wanted to get but it was also bad about not being in focus and didn't date them.  The camera got better images but took too much time between being able to get images but it did put the date on them.  It was hard to choose which to use so I alternated back and forth. 

PS:  I do want to thank the group that took us on this awesome adventure and all the wonderful people we got to know while going on it.  You know who you are - THANK YOU.

Also I have to thank my husband, without him this would not have been possible and he truly helped make it such an awesome adventure.