If I had to sum up 2015 with a single phrase, it would be the year of new experiences.

There have been a whole load of different experiences in different ways (more on that when I do a summary at the end of the year), but one of the big ones is travel. I’ve accidentally managed to average a holiday every three months – see Paris and Wales (I didn’t have time to write about the latter but here’s a picture). A few weeks ago it was Austria’s turn. (I’ve been really slack in editing and writing recently – over 850 photos made it a big job, and writer’s block didn’t help, which is why this post is so late).

I’ve been to Austria once before, but it was a city break to Vienna as part of a hostelling/backpacking trip around Eastern Europe, and incredibly different to Innsbruck and the surrounding areas that I visited this time. Trips for me tend to consist of either city or beach, so it was incredible to be out near the mountains and canyons.

For this kind of blog post, I typically prefer to work on a ‘photo-first’ approach; the images guide the words rather than me finding images to fit what I’ve already written. This is something I consider when I’m taking the photos, when I’m editing them, and when I’m choosing what to include on Flickr and in the post itself.

What struck me about this trip was that I could tell absolutely any story I wanted. The photos I took were so versatile that actually I felt a bit lost and overwhelmed.

Man-made caves under a fort.

Random machine in the canyon. Put some money in, they play a tune. I kid you not.

A cat sitting on a dragon.

You see my problem?

Eventually I decided that rather than a ‘On this day we went to this place and saw that’ kind of post, it would work much better as a series of tiny stories and thoughts and snippets. It’s not the most sensible or obvious approach, but I feel it’s the most fitting. An atypical response to an atypical trip.

This also works well with the fact that a lot of my photos aren’t what you’d consider standard travel photos (although I’ve tried to include a lot of those in this set). At one point we had a conversation that went a bit like this:

Joe: Jenni, are you photographing the floor to use as a wood texture in Photoshop?
Me: What? No! Look over there, is that a dinosaur?
Joe: …

Can you tell we’ve had that conversation before (?!)

After we landed at Innsbruck airport, we went into the town itself. Pro tip: if you’re taking photos on a grey day, get up high and take photos looking down.

Another thing I discovered was that if you filter the shit out of mountain photos on cloudy days, everything looks like Mordor. Here’s an un-Mordor picture in the interests of presenting something vaguely resembling reality:

While we were wandering around a little village, we came across an open-air theatre and meeting spot which had been used as a little countryside wedding venue in recent times. There were still paper birds hanging up, empty bottles of wine on the side, and tiny paper hearts scattered all over the floor.

Our first full day was spent walking through a canyon. It was fun, but super long. My body was a bit confused going from sitting at a desk for eight hours a day straight to walking for eight hours a day. Uphill. With rock falls.

This was also where we saw the cat sitting on a dragon, because where else would you expect to find such a scene?

One of the things that surprised me the most was how beautiful and clean everything was. There’s usually an ugly part of every place, but honestly, I couldn’t find one here. It went beyond spotless: every building had been constructed and looked after with care, every few paces there were flowers. It was completely flawless.

Officially the prettiest town in Europe:

You can’t tell from the picture, but this is an absolutely freezing cold alleyway where they used to store things to keep them cold before fridges were invented:

It was bizarre walking through because it was warm and sunny everywhere apart from this little place.

I love taking photos in museums because they’re always so well-lit and everything is beautifully arranged. (Yes, I’m lazy. And also prone to talking about how good the lighting is in museums, so here’s another pro tip: never get me started on the subject).

One of my favourite things was visiting an old fort. There was so much to see, but my favourite parts were the gory torture chamber displays. Murder is fascinating.

The toughest part of the trip was this. It doesn’t look high in the picture, but it was. It was the first time I’ve ever been on a chairlift and I freaked out. Having a panic attack high up in the air with no way of getting out of the situation was not fun. When I got to the top, I couldn’t actually go on the ride down. But one day, I will come back and beat this (irrational) fear.

I love lakes, and luckily Austria has plenty of them. They’re always really tranquil with plenty of good photo opportunities. A perfect compromise between getting outside and enjoying the environment but not spending the whole day walking.

The first couple of days of our trip were overcast and drizzly. ‘Wait until it gets sunny and all the mountains appear,’ was the phrase of the day.

I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed…

More photos, you say? Well, if you insist… Check out the complete album on Flickr.