Last week we headed off to the 2nd Travel Bloggers Unite conference (the first was this Spring in Manchester). Hashtag: #TBUIBK Delegates arrived from all over and some found it more convenient to fly into Munich, and so the organizer kicked in for some free shuttle transfers for us from Munich airport down to our hotel. Even if we were arriving at MUC via DB Regio, the shuttle drivers didn’t mind at all.
We got to Innsbruck just about two hours after departing Munich on Wednesday night, checked in, and crashed out (it had been a long day). We got started the next morning early exploring the town while killing a little time waiting for our city tour and photo walk to start. One of the first things we noticed: Innsbruck likes two things: puns, and visitors from Italy.
We got ourselves some Tiroler Bauern Gröstl and Schupfnudeln and climbed the stairs to the top of the Stadtturm. The sun was strong, and it gave me a chance to play around with the Diorama art filter on my camera. Austria seems like a good place for that.
We finished up lunch and then started two tours, almost back-to-back. Our first tour guide was a very nice woman named Ute. She knows everything about Innsbruck, but insisted we didn’t have time to do all the best stuff, as we hurried our way through the multimedia museum exhibit on your favorite HRE and mine, Maximilian I; toured the Hofburg palace, admiring the royal portraits; visited the Dom for some impressive sculpture and plenty of Rokoko, and got the skinny on the Goldenes Dachl.
Just about directly after that, Ken Kaminesky took us on a photo walk around town. Armed with our DSLRs, point-and-shoots, and smartphones, we learned a little about lighting, accessories, perspectives, and that it’s not so much the gear that really makes the shot as it is the patience and perspective of the photographer.
We met a lot of great new people over those 3 days, and it was awfully nice to reconnect with pals from Manchester as well.
Here’re the rest of the best of the photos from that trip:
I love Innsbruck and the photos are gorgeous.
Thanks, Expat!
I hope it’s a little bit the new camera and a large part the photographers. Oh, and there’s a chunk of luck in there, too.
Great to see you both again – and excellent pics
Hi Paul – It was good seeing you again, too!
Super pictures (personally, I think it was the photographer). Thanks for sharing.
Hi Harvey – thanks for the vote of confidence. Cliff actually has more photographic chops than he’ll admit.
That said, the new camera is REALLY great. I can even take good pictures with it – no small feat, that.
Glad to hear that you enjoyed Innsbruck. I still haven’t been, but plan to at some point. Great to hear that there were tours at TBU, sounds like a great addition to the TBU in Manchester. I had hoped to go, but was in Canada getting married and got back the weekend of the conference. Maybe we’ll see you at the Germany Expat Bloggers Conference.
Hi Laurel – Congratulations/herzlichen Glückwunsch! TBU was quite good and deepened discourse on the topics that arose in Manchester. Your wedding still wins, though.
We’d love to see you at the Meetup in Köln and feel free to bring your newly-minted husband. He’s more than welcome!
Sure hope so! But to be fair: Conference is a pretty generous term for our meetup of walking around, eating, drinking, griping, laughing and general merriment.
Links to the agenda here. If you’re an expatriate English-language-blogger in Germany, register on the discussion board to get the details.
Love the Diorama pics! I’ll have to look into one of those. :-)