The historic alpine city of Innsbruck

By SUSAN BUCKLAND

From the moment we met I found myself running to keep up with Elisabeth Grassmayr. A dapper, sprightly woman in her mid-60s, she leapt from her car and announced that she would show me Innsbruck in the two hours I had available. She added, however, that I had given myself a ludicrously short time to see this historic and striking city in the Austrian alps.

Get in, she commanded, and off we sped from the village of Seefeld, 1200m up in the alps, down into the valley where Innsbruck is protected by the surrounding mountains from biting winter winds.

She delivered a potted history on the way and I held her small, plastic-covered map while she stabbed at key locations with one hand and negotiated hairpin bends at an energetic pace with the other.

Barely drawing breath, she explained Innsbruck was a walled city by the 1200s, that it was the seat of the Hapsburg empire for 300 years until that role shifted to Vienna in late 17th century and, as a consequence, it was full of architectural and cultural treasures.

She said she would see to it that we covered as many of them as possible within the absurdly short time I had put aside for the beautiful city where she and her husband were born and raised, as were generations of their families before them.

Her husband's family, for example, had owned the bell foundry there for more than 400 years. They send their bells all over the world these days, including New Zealand. They had established a bell museum in the foundry and she offered to fit a visit there into my ridiculously short visit to Innsbruck.

Innsbruck straddles the Inn. The words "inn" and "bruck" mean river and the "s" may have been added to make the name of the city flow like its namesake. But it was Elisabeth's advice to avoid falling into the Inn. The river is fed by glaciers and is perishingly cold, even in summer.

If it were not for the mountains and glaciers, however, Innsbruck would not have hosted the Winter Olympics twice and been a dazzling venue for many other international sports events.

At the base of an Olympic ski jump, Elisabeth paused only long enough to point out that some young champions had starved themselves to fly higher and further and had become anorexic in the process.

At the top she pointed out that the ski jumpers had terrific views of the city cemetery, almost immediately below. And all of Innsbruck as well, although the skiers' focus would be on conquering the frightening downhill run ahead.

She was genuinely surprised when asked if she skied. Skiing for this 65-year-old is clearly like cleaning your teeth. If you live among the alps you ski. She skies every weekend in winter and often takes her grandchildren.

She skies from 2400m up in the mountains down to her garden. Hikes up, skies down. There's a cable car up but she and her husband prefer to walk. It's more relaxing.

Her 92-year-old mother gave up skiing this year - only because she had a hip replacement operation and wanted to give the new hip a chance. Elisabeth confided this while whipping up the stairs of Schloss Ambras, a castle built by a Hapsburg duke in 1563.

I panted after her while she explained there were at least 40 Innsbruck residents who were centurions And she knew of a 111-year-old who had been out walking almost until the day he died.

Elisabeth and Herr Grassmayr enjoyed 52 mountain hikes with friends the previous season. They hiked up, drank schnapps at the top and skied down, often to a restaurant. There are many convivial places to dine in the mountain villages. They will never leave the glorious scenery and fresh air of the Austrian Alps. Why on earth would they want to?

The Grassmayrs don't stint on the pastries for which Austria is famous, either. I asked Elisabeth how she kept such a trim figure. "Movement, my dear, movement," was her response.