Innsbruck is such a compact and walker-friendly city that it would be a shame not to do some walking tours when you visit. Walking through its narrow lanes and colourful markets will give you a better idea about the culture and will expose you to delights like street graffiti, street music and age-old architectural details on buildings that are a treat to photograph. Here are some ideas for self-guided walking tours in Innsbruck
Self-Guided Walking Tours
Knowing the city’s bus and Tram network well will help you when planning a self-guided walking tour. If you have a city sightseeing bus pass then you can get off at any stop near the Altstadt / Maria Theresien Strasse and begin your tour. A fair knowledge about the travel and transport passes of Innsbruck like the Innsbruck Card will also help you in saving money in entry fees to different attractions.
Innsbruck is a very compact city and most of its historical attractions lie in the old town and a good knowledge of this area as well as historic streets like Maria Theresien Strasse will be super helpful. If you are biking your way around Tirol then you can even keep your bike at any of the designated bike parks and then tour the town’s best attractions on foot before resuming your journey.
What you will really need on a self-guided walking tour are a pair of comfortable walking shoes, a bottle of water and some help from Google Maps. Enjoy the flexibility of sitting down at any café of your choice and staying at any attraction for as long (or as little) as you wish.
Walking Tour of Best Attractions
You can basically cover most of the well-known in-city attractions of Innsbruck in about 2 hours (provided you don’t enter any of them) and most of these lie clustered around a radius of 2.2 km. You can start off at the Triumphforte on Maria Theresien Strasse and take a short detour to check out the Befreiungsdenkmal on the Eduard Wallhofer Square. The latter monument denotes the liberty of the Austrian people and is dedicated to those who lost their lives in armed combat.
Next, you can walk inside the lovely Servitenkirche (Servite Church) also on Maria Theresien Strasse and check out its gorgeous frescoes. A few steps away there is the minimalist Kunstraum that’s one of the best modern art galleries and concert venues in Innsbruck. The lovely Annasuale or the Maria Column is the centrepiece of this street and just a few meters away there is the glass-encased shopping paradise ‘Rathausgalerie’.
The old federal state parliament house Altes Landhaus is an excellent Baroque architecture example with statuary, paintings and delicate frescoes. The Tiroler Landesmuseum Feridenandeum on Museumstrasse and the Tirole Volkskunstmuseum (folk museum) on Universitastrasse are two of the best museums Austria has to offer, so you should not miss checking them out. They are within 1 km of each other but paying a visit inside will take up at least 2 hours (each); it’s best to admire them from outside while you are doing a walking tour.
Now you are in Alstadt and the gorgeous Black Men Church Hofkirche should be on your agenda. Imperial Palace (Hofburg) is right next door and though it chronicles the lives and times of the Habsburg dynasty, now the Austrian president resides here. The Golden Roof with its gleaming 2657 gilded tiles is an eye-catcher and so is the 53 feet high Stadtturm that’s the heart of old town.
From the Golden Roof, you can also go into a side lane and visit the St James Cathedral (also known as Innsbruck Cathedral). Right opposite the Stadtturm you will see a superbly ornate building that almost looks like a cake… the Helbling House. The old buildings around here are all noteworthy like the Goldener Adler (Innsbruck’s oldest hotel) and the beautiful multi-storeyed Girls School by Maria Theresa. You can also check on the Claudiana Palace, Kolbenturm, Ottoburg and Hospital Church on Maria Theresa Street.
Delving deep into the heart of old town and discovering gems like the Dom zu St Jakob dates back to the 18th century feels almost like an adventure. Photograph the most eye-catching buildings of old town… these will include the oldest hotel in Innsbruck, Tiroler Landertheater and SOWI facility of Innsbruck University apart from the Kongress – und Konzerthaus (Congress building). You can end your walking tour in the Hofgarten (opposite the Hofburg)… this 10-hectare green space has ornate lawns and a nice horticulture collection.
If you feel like taking a break in between your Innsbruck walking tour then do stop to sample the traditional Tyrolean delicacies at the old Hotel Weisses Rossl (on Keibachgasse) that’s just 2 minutes away from the Golden Roof; this is supposedly the oldest hotel in town. Another option is the Stiftskeller (on Stiftgasse) that’s an official part of the Imperial Palace… it was known as the ‘House of Coat of Arms’ in Maximillian’s time. A part of the old town wall runs right through this place and the restaurant features museum-quality frescoes.
Walking Tour of Old Churches
Innsbruck is full of fantastic old churches and a self-guided church spotting tour can be done within 2 hours and in a radius of 3 km.
A church tour can start off at Klosterkirche/ Monastery Church of the Merciful Sisters (in Karl-Kapferer-Straße, Saggen district) that’s distinguished by the bright murals decking it all over. Kapuzinkirche/ Capuchin Monastery holds great historical value as its stones were laid down by Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol and Archduchess Anna Catherine. You will find this monastery inside the inner-city district of Innsbruck on the corner of Kapuzingasse and Kaiserjagerstrae.
Continue walking for about 300 meters via Kaiserjagerstrabe and Universitasstrabe and you will reach the Jesuit Church on Karl Rahner Platz. The 17th century Jesuitenkirche took 13 years to be built and possesses the crypts of its founders Leopold V. And Claudia de Medici while the 4th largest bell in the world (9200 kg) has been gracing it for centuries. Turn back to Univeritatsstrabe and walk for 200 meters and there is the Black men’s church Hofkirche.
After the grand Hofkirche take a couple of turns via Rennweg and Herzog-Otto-Straße and after about 600 meters there is another leading attraction of Innsbruck; Dom Zu St Jakob. After a short 800 meter digression through Herrengasse, there is the 14th-century Spitalkirche; an establishment that once served as a hospital as well as a church.
A little distance away is Maria Theresien Strasse with the 16th century Servite Church and hosts some of the most beautiful frescoes in town. Go south from the old city and enter Maximillianstrabe where you will find Herz Jesu… a small and pretty renaissance style basilica. Johanneskirche in Bischof-Reinhold-Stecher-Platz has excellent Gothic features and is a good example of Anton Gumpp’s architecture and Josef Schopf’s fresco work. Few people know that this church honours St Johann Nepomuk.
Museum Walking Tour
If you are a museum lover then you can visit the top 6 museums of Innsbruck in about 2 hours and in a radius of 3.9 km. You can start off your museum walk at Universitätsstraße visiting Europe’s prettiest Folk Art museum Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum and then walk on to the multifaceted Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum (Museumstrasse) that’s one of the oldest museums with separate collections of natural science, music, art and history.
Turn into Maximillianstrabe and walk for about 1.5 km into the Anatomisches museum at the Institute of Anatomy (Innsbruck Medical University), Mullerstrabe. Walk straight for about a km via Andreas-Hofer-Straße and Egger-Lienz-Straße and you will reach Grassmayr. The Grassmayr Bell Museum… a 400 years bell foundry that crafted some of the biggest church bells in Europe, stands on the Leopoldstrasse and is one of the less-publicized great attractions of this city. The sound room, foundry and collection of antique bells are all noteworthy.
The Tiroler Museumsbahnen at Pater-Reinisch-Weg has the goal of preserving rail artefacts and history. You can check out old rail carriages here including the pretty 80-year-old Stubai valley Rail buses. Walk on to the Tyrolean Kaisers Infantry Museum that demonstrates the military history of Hungary/ Austria… this has a formidable collection of medals, uniforms, armour and other military items. This is linked by an underground passage to the famous Tirol Panorama that’s a fitting end to this lovely tour.
Shopping Tour
Innsbruck has the ideal combination of glamorous malls and lovely intimate boutiques selling traditional & modern apparel and accessories. It also has speciality food stores, eclectic cafes and amazing open-air markets. The wide range of shopping options in such a compactly arranged city makes a shopping tour seem like a treasure hunt. Though there are hardly any shopping guided tours on offer in town; you can easily do a self-guided shopping tour.
You can choose to base your shopping walk on Maria Theresien Street as that’s the principal shopping street of Innsbruck. Or you could be a little more experimental and start your tour at Café Sacher on Rennweg Street (the most popular café in town) and buy up a bagful of their famous sweets and cakes.
The next stop is Culinarium (right beside the Golden Roof in Old Town) that sells amazing variants of local drinks including the Rochelt. An Innsbruck shopping escapade can never be complete without a stop at the Swarovski Crystal Gallery in the gorgeous old building in Herzog-Friedrich-Straße. The splendid space brims over with eclectic jewellery, crystal decorative items, fashion accessories etc.
Walk a while and you will enter the shopping mecca of Maria Theresien Strasse that has a huge shopping centre topped by a glass roof. A few steps away there is the David Chipperfield designed mall Kaufhaus Tyrol. If you are someone who appreciates indigenous craft items then Tiroler Heimatwerk is just ten minutes away on Meraner Strasse. This store sells ceramics, decorative wooden chests, textiles, accessories, costumes, Tyrolean puppets and charming nativity figurines.
If the traditional clothes of Austria like Dirndls (Austrian peasant dresses) impress you then a stop at Hubertus Loden Steinbock (Sparkassenpl) will charm you… regardless of whether you actually buy anything or not. About ten minutes away on Wilhelm-Greil-Straße there is the Hanfhaus that sells a great assortment of smoking accessories including vaporisers, herb mashers, blunt wraps and handmade papers.
All these stores lie in close proximity to each other (about a 1.5 km radius)… all you will need is about an hour to check out all these attractions. If you come around Christmas then you can do a Christmas market walk. 3 of the major Christmas markets in Innsbruck sit within easy walking distance of each other. Old town market that sits around Golden Roof, Maria Theresien Christmas Market and Marktplatz market with its shimmering Swarovski Christmas tree are all wonderful places for walks.
Or else you could walk for about 10 minutes using Leopoldstrasse from Old town and you will reach Wilten that’s a non-touristy local Christmas market. Another 5 minutes walk away from Old town is the charming St Nikolaus quarter with its rows of antique houses, street food and a pretty open-air Christmas market.
Walks Around River Inn
The principal street of old town i.e. Herzog Friedrich Strasse winds along with the right bank of River Inn. The street is filled with fantastic Baroque and Rococo style buildings in different colours and this is probably the best part of town for a photo walk. The colour of the river (pretty jade green) is spectacular and owes this shade to the high concentration of minerals and low levels of nitrate in it… a lovely jade green.
The bridge over the river Inn is the origin of Innsbruck and you can walk to this iconic structure that’s near Marktplatz. From the bridge, you can see amazing views of the Alps and the rows of colourful houses gracing the sides of the river. Innsbruck developed when the settlement along Inn river north bank spread to the south bank using the bridge so crossing over via the bridge is the most meaningful interaction you will have with this city.
If you wish you could continue this walk to delve deep into the oldest part of Innsbruck; St Nikolaus and Maria Hilf with their delicatessens, vegetable markets, cafes and old buildings. Many prefer going on for a walk on the south bank of Inn and visiting the Marktplatz while admiring the candy-coloured townhouses on the north bank.
Guided Walking Tours
Plenty of tour companies offer guided walking tours around Innsbruck but the narrow lanes of its historical zone make walking with a large group difficult. Innsbruck is a city with a lot of history and has seen the rise and fall of many rich royal dynasties… the most notable of whom is the Habsburg clan who are intricately linked with almost every monument the city has to offer.
Some of its facets are impossible to know/ understand unless you have studied its history in detail or unless you opt for a guided walking tour. For example, the gorgeous houses on Maria Theresien Strasse all have their own histories which only an experienced local guide can share with you on a tour. Similarly, there are startling facts like Maximillian’s tomb inside the Hofkirche which is actually empty and the tiles on the Golden Roof are replicas; things that you are apt to know only on a guided tour.
Usually, tour guides use a small mike while the group uses headsets to listen to the narration. Innsbruck’s old town, however, demands the intimacy of a private guided tour… the streets are too narrow and too full of trivia to be explored with the company.
A 2-hour walking tour in Innsbruck Old town and Maria Theresien street with guided visits to the Golden Roof, Stadtturm, Triumph Arch, Dom zu St Jacob and Maximillian’s tomb at Hofkirche etc. is offered by Viator. The guide is always multilingual and speaks fluent English and he meets tourists at the Arch of Triumph on Leopoldstrabe and drops them off at the end of the tour near the Hofgarten. Entry fees to attractions have to be paid over and above the tour.
You can book this tour online through this Viator site.
If you are in Innsbruck for only a couple of days then you could also do the Classic city highlights tour that only takes in the most important attractions. In one and a half hours you will get to see the Goth style city centre and Golden Roof, Hofkirche, Hofburg and the St Jakob Cathedral. Maria Theresien Street with its Triumph Arch is also explored. The tour starts and ends at the Buggraben.
You can book this tour via Viator here.
A travel addict. Still celebrating the day when he quit his high-profile corporate job to pursue his passion for travel writing.