I am very proud of my fur coat.  It’s glossy, black and silky soft to the touch.  A cloak like that must have provided my ancestors with a great camouflage in the forests and John tells me I blend in quite nicely on a dark carpet which must be why I can stalk my mousey so well.  But on the crispy white snow of Innsbruck I stood out like a sore thumb.  With my jet black fur and John’s tomato red ski jacket we looked a right pair!  Luckily most peoples’ attention was focussed on the sturdy metal bathtubs that kept sliding at full velocity down a sloped twisting ice chute.  John said it was the 2017 World Cup Bobsled competition and the humans dressed in shiny Lycra cat suits with protective helmets were deliberately descending the ice chute to see who could do it the best.

Bobsleigh or bobsled (not sure what the difference is) involves teams of two or four people pushing the sled down a narrow, banked ice track before leaping into it just as gravity powers it along and they rocket down the track at around 120mph.  This is a popular winter sport in Innsbruck which is known fondly as the Capital of the Alps.  It’s the fourth largest city in Austria yet its small enough to get around on foot.  The Olympic Winter Games in 1964 and 1976 were held here and it is a hub of snow-based activity including skiing, snowboarding, skating, mountaineering and snowshoeing.  The bravest of all compete in the luge competition where one or two people lay face up on a skateboard literally inches from the hard ribbon of concrete beneath them and thunder down the track without even being able to see where they’re going.

Innsbruck is known for its imperial architecture with gothic attributes like the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof) building, a landmark structure completed in 1500 and decorated with 2,738 fire-gilded copper tiles for Emperor Maximillian 1 who was King of the Romans from 1486. We also did a bit of celebrity spotting when we went out for dinner and saw some of the cast of reality TV show The Jump relaxing in an Austrian restaurant in the old town.  One of them kept rubbing John’s hair which is admittedly extremely bouncy and curly and grows at an alarming rate.  One time I heard tweeting coming from his head and a twig fell out!  Anyway, I’m not sure if this is an Austrian tradition or simply a quirk of this particular eating establishment but as we got to the end of the meal, there was a commotion.  Apparently one of the photographers on the trip, didn’t finish all her food and was punished with a smack on the bottom with a fish!  Everyone roared with laughter but I thought it was a waste of a perfectly good sea bass!

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