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FrançaisInnsbruck packs a walkable old town under a 2,300 m mountain wall, which is why one day covers the Golden Roof, the Hofkirche and a cable car ride to Hafelekar, and two days let you add Ambras Castle and Swarovski Kristallwelten. Almost everything here is altitude-dependent and season-dependent, so the one thing worth checking before you book is which cable cars are actually running on your dates.
Innsbruck in Austria is loved by hikers, mountain bikers, skiers and snowboarders, and it works just as well if you are not feeling active. I went in February with no intention of skiing and still ran out of days.
Things to do in Innsbruck Austria
Keep these 14 Innsbruck attractions in mind when you plan your itinerary. They work in winter without a lift pass, and all but two of them work in summer as well. Want to learn more about the country first? Check out these 77 fun facts.
1. Wander through the Old Town
Start with an aimless walk through the Altstadt, because Innsbruck’s old town is about six streets deep and you can cover it before you have decided what to do properly. The buildings are painted in different colours, many of them stately, and the Nordkette wall sits at the end of almost every north-facing street.
Make a point of Café Munding on Kiebachgasse. It has been baking since 1803, which makes it Tyrol’s oldest confectionery, and it is worth going year-round, but especially in December, when it turns its windows into the panels of an advent calendar.
2. Take a photo of the colourful houses of St Nicholas
The colourful houses of the St Nikolaus district line the north bank of the Inn, and their colours are the reason they are on every Innsbruck postcard. The paint scheme refers to the trades of the medieval families who lived in them.
Shoot them from the Innsteg footbridge or the Marktplatz side of the river, with the snow-capped Nordkette rising directly behind the rooftops. Late afternoon in winter is the moment, because the light hits the facades while the mountain is still bright.
3. Visit the market hall
The Markthalle is Innsbruck’s covered food market on the river at Herzog-Siegmund-Ufer, and it is the place to eat cheaply among locals rather than tourists. The stalls all look different because each trader fits out their own, and the produce is Tyrolean: cheese, speck, bread, fruit, flowers.
Several counters have stools, so you can stop for a coffee, a beer or a plate of something without leaving. It is open through the morning and early afternoon on weekdays and Saturday mornings, and it is quiet by mid-afternoon.
4. Admire the Golden Roof
The Goldenes Dachl is Innsbruck’s most famous sight, a late-Gothic oriel at the end of Herzog-Friedrich-Straße covered in 2,657 fire-gilded copper shingles. Emperor Maximilian I had it built onto the Neuhof between 1497 and 1500 to mark his marriage to Bianca Maria Sforza, and the balcony below carries frescoes, carved reliefs and coats of arms.
Looking at it from the street is free. The small museum inside costs €5.80 ($7, £5) for adults and €3 ($3, £3) reduced, and it opens daily from 10:00 to 17:00 between May and September, and Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00 from October to April, closed Mondays.
Go on a sunny day if you can pick one. The gilding only does its thing in direct light, and under cloud it reads as a dull brown.
5. Visit the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum and the Hofkirche
The Folk Art Museum and the Hofkirche are one visit, because you buy at the same desk and the entrance to the church is inside the museum. A single ticket is €9 ($10, £8), or €7 ($8, £6) reduced, and under-19s go free. It opens Monday to Saturday from 09:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, and Sunday and holidays from 12:30 to 17:00.
If you plan to see more of the Tiroler Landesmuseen, the combined ticket at €14 ($16, £12) also covers the Ferdinandeum, the Zeughaus and the TIROL PANORAMA on Bergisel, and it stays valid for a year.
The Tyrolean Folk Art Museum
The Tyrolean Folk Art Museum sets out how Tyrol actually lived, in a former Franciscan monastery next to the church. The permanent collection holds traditional costume, handicraft, pottery, textiles, tools and folk art, and the reconstructed wood-panelled parlours moved out of old farmhouses are the part people remember.
We did not have long here and mostly saw the year-round nativity scene exhibition, which runs to a large collection of crib art from the 18th century onwards. If you have a spare hour, give it to this museum rather than to the Golden Roof.
The Hofkirche
The Hofkirche holds 28 over-lifesize bronze figures standing guard around the empty tomb of Emperor Maximilian I, and locals call them the Schwarze Mander, the black men. Most stand about 2 m (6.6 ft) tall, they were cast by several workshops in the first half of the 16th century, and together they are the largest Renaissance tomb monument in the Alps.
Ferdinand I, Maximilian’s grandson, commissioned the church in 1553. The tomb itself is a cenotaph: Maximilian is buried in Wiener Neustadt, because the foundations there could not carry the weight of this monument. Do not leave without the Silberne Kapelle, a side chapel with a silver relief altar to the Madonna and the tombs of Archduke Ferdinand II and his wife Philippine Welser.
6. Get a glimpse of the Imperial Hofburg Palace
The Hofburg is the Habsburg imperial palace on Rennweg, rebuilt for Maria Theresa in the 18th century, and it is one of Austria’s three most significant historic buildings alongside Schönbrunn and the Vienna Hofburg. Inside you can see the Giant Hall with its Habsburg family portraits, the Gothic cellar, the Kürnstube hunting room, the silver chamber and the chapel.
The palace was closed when I was in Innsbruck, so I still have not been inside and need to go back. Check current opening days before you build a morning around it.
Just outside, the Hofgarten was laid out under Archduke Ferdinand II in the 16th century and was then one of the most elaborate gardens north of the Alps. It is public, free and open all year, and there is a restaurant in the middle of it for a warming drink on a winter walk.
7. Go up the terrace of the House of Music
The Haus der Musik has a free public terrace on the fifth floor, and it is the easiest city view in Innsbruck. Check the programme first, because the building is a working concert venue, but you do not need a ticket for the view: walk in, take the lift to the fifth floor and step out.
There is one terrace straight ahead of the lift and a second if you turn right and go round the corner. It is not the Nordkette, but it is free, it takes ten minutes and almost nobody who has not been told about it goes up.
8. Take the cable car up the Nordkette
The Nordkettenbahnen run from the middle of Innsbruck to 2,256 m in three stages, and the whole trip takes about 30 minutes. The Hungerburgbahn funicular starts at Congress in the centre, the Seegrubenbahn cable car takes over to 1,905 m, and the Hafelekarbahn finishes the climb. Getting off at Seegrube is enough for most people; Hafelekar is for the ridge walk and the view over the Inn valley.
I had already taken the cable car up the Nordkette once when I visited Innsbruck in summer, and doing it in winter was a different mountain. Skiers came down the slopes where we had watched mountain bikers, and the wooden bench overlooking the city was buried under at least 30 cm (11.8 in) of snow. One stop down, the terrace at the Seegrube restaurant was as busy as it had been in summer, and the weather was good enough that February to eat outside and get a tan doing it.
Check the timetable before you go, because the mountain shuts for maintenance twice a year. The 2026 summer season ran from 25 April to 1 November, the autumn maintenance closure runs from 2 to 19 November 2026, the winter season runs from 20 November 2026 to 25 April 2027, and the spring closure follows from 26 to 30 April 2027. In summer 2026 the Hungerburgbahn ran from 07:15 to 19:15 on weekdays and from 08:00 at weekends, the Seegrubenbahn from 08:30 to 18:30, and the Hafelekarbahn from 09:00 to 18:00, with cars every 15 minutes. A full adult return from the city to Hafelekar, the ticket Nordkette sells as Top of Innsbruck, is €56 ($65, £48) on the operator’s own 2026 tariff, which is why the Innsbruck Card pays for itself fast.
9. Visit Ambras Castle
Schloss Ambras sits in the hills above Innsbruck and holds what is generally called the world’s oldest museum still standing where it was created. Archduke Ferdinand II lived here from 1567 to 1595 and built the collection deliberately as a public display, which was a new idea at the time.
Go for the Kunst- und Wunderkammer, a cabinet of curiosities kept in its original cases, the Spanish Hall with its Renaissance murals and inlaid wooden ceiling, and the Habsburg Portrait Gallery, which runs past 200 paintings including work by Rubens, van Dyck and Velázquez. The upper castle also holds Maximilian I’s Saint George altar.
Tickets are €16 ($19, £14) online or €18 ($21, £15) at the gate, €12 ($14, £10) reduced, and under-19s go free. It opens daily from 10:00 to 17:00 and closes for the whole of November. The portrait gallery and the Gothic sculpture collection are only open from 1 April to 31 October. I did not have time on my winter trip and still want to go back.
10. Have dinner at restaurant aDLERS
Restaurant aDLERS is on the twelfth floor of the aDLERS hotel by the station, and it is the dinner with a view in Innsbruck. In summer we ate on the terrace watching the sun drop behind the mountains; in winter we sat inside with the city lights behind the glass instead, and the food and the service were the same both times.
The staff manage to be friendly without hovering, which is harder than it sounds. Prices were reasonable for what it is: a fish main course was €22 ($26, £19) when I ate there, which is not what a restaurant with that view charges in most cities. Book a window table rather than turning up.
11. Visit the interactive Audioversum Museum
The Audioversum is a science centre about sound and hearing, and it is built so that you experience each idea rather than read about it. Feel how sound moves through a surface, work out where a noise is coming from with your eyes shut, track birds by their calls. It sounds odd written down and it is genuinely good fun.
Adult entry is €14 ($16, £12) and young visitors pay less. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00 with last entry at 17:30, and closes on Mondays. Alongside the permanent exhibition there are usually two temporary shows; when we went, the photography one was worth the time and the historical one was clearly built for school groups.
12. Go up the Bergisel ski jump and have lunch with a view
The Bergisel ski jump is open to visitors all year and it is the one Innsbruck sight that is worth doing in bad weather as well as good. There has been a jump on Bergisel hill since 1925, and Zaha Hadid’s replacement tower went up in 2002. The stadium seats about 26,000 and hosts the Innsbruck leg of the Four Hills Tournament every January.
Entry is €12 ($14, £10) for adults, €11 ($13, £9) for seniors and concessions, €6.50 ($8, £6) for children aged 6 to 14 and €24 ($28, £21) for a family, with under-6s free. That includes the run up on the inclined lift and the tower lift to the viewing terrace. A combined ticket with the TIROL PANORAMA museum at the foot of the hill is €16 ($19, £14). It opens daily from 09:00 to 18:00 between June and October, and Wednesday to Monday from 09:00 to 17:00 from November to May, closed Tuesdays.
Restaurant Bergisel SKY is at the top of the tower, level with the start gate. We had lunch there looking down the inrun, and I can recommend the Caesar salad with chicken and, if you like cake at all, the Bergiseltorte, which is baked in the shape of the jump.
13. Enjoy the view on top of a shopping mall
Lichtblick is the round bar on top of the RathausGalerien on Maria-Theresien-Straße, and it gives you a 360-degree view over Innsbruck for the price of a drink. Take the lift to the fifth or sixth floor, then the escalator to the top; there are two lifts and one of them stops a floor short.
From the bar you can climb one more level to an open viewing platform. Use the binoculars up there, because they name what you are looking at as you look at it. Lichtblick works as a café through the day and a restaurant in the evening, Monday to Saturday.
14. Choose 1 out of 20 strudels
Strudel-Café Kröll on Hofgasse sells about 20 kinds of strudel, sweet and savoury, and it is 50 m from the Golden Roof. I had a classic apple strudel and my friend Katrin ordered one with meat and pasta, and neither of us regretted the choice.
If strudel is not your thing, there are other pastries. You can sit in or take away, which is the better option if you want to eat yours on a bench with the Nordkette in front of you.
Things to do near Innsbruck
Two day trips are worth the bus fare out of Innsbruck, and both of them are indoor-outdoor rather than mountain days. They are listed below.
1. Visit the Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal park)
Swarovski Kristallwelten is in Wattens, about 20 km (12.4 mi) east of Innsbruck, and it splits into an indoor and an outdoor half. Indoors, the Chambers of Wonder run through crystal artworks in every form: a mirrored dome that multiplies you, a crystal forest, large sculptures.
Outside, the garden holds the Crystal Cloud, a playground, sculptures and a carousel, which we rode and which made us feel about eight years old. The waterfall pouring from the giant head at the entrance is the thing everyone photographs. There is also a very large Swarovski shop, open to anyone with or without a ticket.
Day tickets start at about €23 ($27, £20) for adults, and a day pass including the shuttle from Innsbruck is about €38 ($44, £33). It opens daily from 09:00 to 19:00 with last admission at 18:00. The Kristallwelten E-shuttle runs several times a day from Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof. Want to visit the Kristallwelten? Buy your ticket online.
2. Visit the igloo village in Kühtai
The Iglu-Dorf in Kühtai is a village built new out of snow every winter, about an hour from Innsbruck by bus, and it works as a day trip or an overnight. From a distance it looks small; inside, the rooms, the restaurant and the bar are far more spacious than they have any right to be.
Each season it is built to a different theme, so the rooms change every year. There are rooms for up to four, which double as dorms if you are not travelling as a group, and romantic rooms for two. An overnight stay is not just a bed: it includes a guided snowshoe hike at night, cheese fondue in the igloo restaurant, time in the sauna to warm through before you get into the sleeping bags, and breakfast at a mountain restaurant nearby.
The 2026/27 season opens on 26 December 2026 and runs to 28 March 2027, daily until 3 January and then closed Monday to Wednesday. You need a reservation for the rooms; the bar and restaurant are open to anyone, but book the restaurant anyway, because it fills up when the igloos are full. The team builds the furniture and doors by hand and sources much of the food from farms in the valley, and they will happily tell you about it if you ask.
The Innsbruck Welcome Card
Two different Innsbruck cards exist and they are easy to confuse, so check which one you are being offered. The Welcome Card is free and comes with your accommodation if you stay at a partner property in the Innsbruck region. It covers the ski bus, ice skating in three arenas, cross-country skiing in the region, free travel on selected VVT buses in the holiday region, and discounts of 10 to 50% on other activities.
The Innsbruck Card is the paid sightseeing pass and it is a different product. It covers 22 museums and attractions, one return trip on the Nordkettenbahnen and the Patscherkofelbahn, city public transport, the Sightseer hop-on-hop-off bus, the Swarovski Kristallwelten shuttle and a few hours of bike hire, and it is sold in 24, 48 and 72-hour versions starting from roughly €69 ($80, £59) for an adult. If your plan includes the Nordkette and two museums in a day, it is cheaper than paying separately.
You can find more information on the official website.
What to pack
Pack for a mountain city in whichever season you are visiting, which in winter means layers, a waterproof outer shell and boots with grip, because the old town cobbles ice over. If you are planning to visit Innsbruck in winter, I wrote a whole post about what to pack for a winter trip to Austria, which you can find right here.
Two things people forget even in summer. Sunglasses and sun cream, because you gain 2,000 m of altitude in half an hour on the Nordkette. And a warm layer for the top, because Hafelekar is usually 12 to 15 °C colder than the city below it.
How to get to Innsbruck
By train!
Take the train if you can, because Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof is a 10-minute walk from the old town and the railway crosses the Alps for you. ÖBB runs direct services from Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Zurich and Verona, and the Brenner line south to Italy leaves from the same station.
I took a night train to Innsbruck for the first time on this trip. When I travelled, Nightjet ran direct between Brussels and Innsbruck; that direct service no longer runs, but you can still take a night train to Cologne and change there. You can book a seat in a seating carriage, a berth in a shared sleeper cabin, or a private sleeper cabin.
We took the private cabin and it was far more comfortable than I had imagined. When we boarded, someone came to ask what time we wanted the beds made up and when we wanted breakfast. A private cabin includes breakfast with six items chosen from a menu and a welcome bag with water, sparkling wine, crackers, a towel, a pen and earplugs. Take the earplugs seriously if you are a light sleeper, because you hear people moving down the corridor.
Dinner was not included but could be bought on board. It was cheap, at around €9 ($10, £8) for a chicken and rice platter, though the portion was too small for me; my travel companion was happy with hers. The only real problem was that they did not take cards at the time and nothing said so in advance, so carry some cash. There was a shared bathroom, the staff were friendly, and we left and arrived on time: 6 p.m. out of Brussels, 9.15 a.m. into Innsbruck. Check train routes and prices before you fix your dates.
By plane
Innsbruck Airport is about 15 minutes from the centre by road and bus F runs into town, which makes it one of the easiest Alpine airports to arrive at. Scheduled traffic is thin outside the ski season, so also price Munich, which is roughly two hours away by direct train and has far more routes. Check Trip.com for flights to Austria and set an alert if your dates are flexible.
By bus
Long-distance coaches are the cheap way in, and FlixBus runs several routes to Innsbruck from Germany, Italy and elsewhere in Austria. They stop at the bus terminal beside the Hauptbahnhof, so you arrive in the same place as the trains.
Where to stay in Innsbruck
Stay in the Altstadt or on Maria-Theresien-Straße if you want to walk to everything, and near the Hauptbahnhof if you are arriving late or leaving early. Innsbruck is small enough that the two are ten minutes apart on foot. There are plenty of accommodation options to choose from in Austria, and here is a selection for Innsbruck itself.
Budget: Hotel Goldene Krone Innsbruck
A simple option with good value, in a Baroque building about 300 m from Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof, with the Triumphal Arch around the corner and most of the old town under 10 minutes away on foot. Wifi is free and reception is staffed 24 hours. View Hotel Goldene Krone on Booking.com.
Boutique: Stage 12
We stayed at Stage 12, right in the centre and seconds from the Goldenes Dachl, split between a new building and a historic one. It is stylish, with a gym, a spa with sauna and steam bath and an outdoor terrace, and my room with a terrace had a mountain view I got a lot of use out of. The breakfast buffet is extensive and leans on regional products, and the cocktail bar downstairs is busy in the evenings. View Stage 12 on Booking.com.
Chain: Hotel Goldener Adler, BW Signature Collection
This one has a dramatic facade and a strong interior, with stone arched ceilings, velvet headboards and soft lighting, about 100 m from the Golden Roof and five minutes from the Hofburg and the Hofkirche. Rooms have free wifi and Sky TV, and there is a Tyrolean restaurant downstairs. View Hotel Goldener Adler on Booking.com.
Luxury: The PENZ Hotel
The Penz is a modern glass building in the centre with a conservatory terrace that has the mountains as its backdrop, a bar on the fifth floor and the breakfast restaurant on the roof. Underground parking makes arriving by car straightforward, which is not true of most of the old town. View The PENZ Hotel on Booking.com.
Apartment: Top of Innsbruck
A two-bedroom apartment with large windows and good views, a fully equipped kitchen, a big bathroom with a full-size bath, free wifi and garage parking. Better than a hotel if you are staying a week or travelling as a family. View Top of Innsbruck on Booking.com.
Tours and tickets in Innsbruck
Book ahead in Innsbruck for the things that sell out or run to a shuttle timetable: Swarovski Kristallwelten with transport included, guided old town walks, and the Alpine day trips into the Stubai and the Zillertal.
Innsbruck FAQ
How many days do you need in Innsbruck?
Two. Day one is the old town, the Golden Roof, the Hofkirche and the Nordkette; day two is Bergisel and either Ambras Castle or Swarovski Kristallwelten. One day works if you skip the day trips.
Is Innsbruck worth visiting in winter without skiing?
Yes. Every one of the 14 things above except the Ambras collections works between December and March, and the cable cars run through the winter season. The city is also cheaper and quieter than the resorts an hour away.
Is the Nordkette worth it if the weather is bad?
No. Check the webcams at the top station before you buy, because the whole point is the view and low cloud takes it away. Bergisel and the museums are the wet-weather plan.
When is Ambras Castle closed?
All of November. The Habsburg Portrait Gallery and the Gothic sculpture collection are open only from 1 April to 31 October, so a winter visit sees less of the castle than a summer one.
Do I need a car in Innsbruck?
No. The old town is walkable, trams and buses cover the rest, and both the airport and the station are close in. A car only helps if you are heading into the side valleys.
And that is it. I hope this answered your question of what to do in Innsbruck and helps you plan your own trip to Austria in winter.
WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips
The 5 tips below come from my own trips here in summer and in February, and from reading the operating seasons off the venues’ own sites, which is where an Innsbruck day usually goes wrong.
- Work out which card you are being offered before you pay for one. The Welcome Card is the free one that comes with a stay at a partner property and covers the ski bus, the ice rinks, cross-country skiing and the VVT buses. The Innsbruck Card is the separate paid sightseeing pass that covers the Nordkette and 22 attractions, from roughly €69. Buying the wrong one costs you either money or the cable car.
- Check the Nordkette’s maintenance windows against your dates. The summer season runs 25 April to 1 November 2026, the cable cars then shut for maintenance from 2 to 19 November, the winter season runs 20 November 2026 to 25 April 2027, and a shorter spring closure follows it. Neither gap is obvious from a hotel booking page.
- Look at the summit webcams before you buy a Nordkette ticket, and dress for the top. Hafelekar sits at 2,256 m and usually runs 12 to 15 °C colder than the streets below. I have gone up in summer and again in February, and on the February trip we ate outside on the Seegrube terrace in the sun with at least 30 cm of snow on the ground, so the weather decides this rather than the month.
- Keep Ambras Castle off a November itinerary. It closes for the whole month, and the portrait gallery and the Gothic sculpture collection open only from 1 April to 31 October, so a winter visit gets you a smaller castle than the photographs promise.
- Do not go to Bergisel on a Tuesday between November and May. The ski jump runs Wednesday to Monday through the winter, 09:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, and daily 09:00 to 18:00 from June to October.
About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her trips to Innsbruck in summer and again in February, when she took the Nightjet from Brussels, stayed at Stage 12 and rode the Nordkettenbahnen in the snow. The team covers Innsbruck and the rest of Austria for independent travellers, including the cable cars, the museums, the hotels and the day trips worth booking, and updates this page when prices, opening seasons and timetables change.
