(click on images for full size)
(first posted 1/13/2015) Having stumbled into a trove of vintage photographs of my birth city Innsbruck, Austria, I’ve decided share the ones that have vintage cars on the streets. I’ll start with a series of Innsbruck’s ‘Main street’, the Maria Theresian Strasse with the Annasäule (St. Ann’s column, from 1706) in the center. Since this iconic view of Innsbruck, with the mountains close behind, has been reproduced so many times over the decades and even centuries, I’m going to go back as far as I could find images, which was 1840. The series of shots documents how this street started out as a pedestrian-oriented plaza, and is now again one. In the long history of this street, which goes back much further yet, the automobile is just a temporary interloper.
I picked this one for the first shot because we’re mainly interested in the cars, and this shot from approximately 1971 has a particularly healthy sample.
1840 image via uibk.ac.at
This is from 1840, the oldest one with the view that came to grace millions of postcards. This area is the Neustadt (new city) of Innsbruck, first built up in the 1300s when the walled Altstadt (Old City) Innsbruck, founded in 1180, and just beyond the two buildings at the far end of the street, became too crowded. The suburbs, in other words.
Originally, this was built up with wood houses and shops, for craftsmen of various trades. A fire in 1620 wiped it out, and after that time, all buildings had to be built of stone. The definitive buildings seen here and today were mostly built in the 1670-1750 period, mostly for high-level administrators and nobility (Innsbruck was the home to the somewhat short-lived Tirolean line of the Habsburgs, and later emperors also used Innsbruck as an alternate imperial city to Vienna).
1850
This small image from 1850 shows the street more romantically, which includes what appears to be a religious procession on the right.
1890
An early hand-tinted postcard, from about 1890. The street was named Maria Theresian Strasse in 1873, after the former Empress.
1898
This photo is dated 1898, and no cars to be seen, not surprisingly. Instead, there’s a woman with her dog cart.
1910
This shot from 1910 shows horses and cart, as well as the tracks and overhead line for the new electric street car. That would become a fixture in many of the subsequent images.
1928
It’s 1928, and the first shot with a few cars (don’t ask me what it is). These folks are likely tourists, probably just gotten out of the horse-drawn carriage after a ride from the train station. Tourists had been coming to the Alpine area around Innsbruck already for some time, since the mid 1800s. Needless to say, tourism has been one of the biggest sectors of the economy for a long time.
1935?
This shot was dated “1930” in the archives, but the cars are a bit more recent than that, showing distinctive signs of mid-thirties styling.
1939
This one is dated 1939, and reflects the effect of Hitler’s Anschluss (annexation) of Austria in 1938. I’d never seen an image like this before, and it’s disturbing. Austria was very small and weak after losing WW1, and struggled with its identity. In 1918, there was a movement to unite with Germany, but the Treaty of Versailles forbade that. Given that Austrians are ethnic Germans, and Hitler was of course from Austria, it’s not really surprising that he and his troops got a welcome reception when they entered on March 15, 1938, in defiance of what he had promised only months earlier.
1939
Needless to say, Austrians were either pro or anti Hitler, which made life difficult. Both of my parents came from strong anti-Hitler families; my father’s father was imprisoned for some months because of his outspoken politics as well as because of his Jewish mother. A very dark chapter.
1942
It certainly doesn’t look very war-like in this shot, but then the date could be wrong. It might well be a few years later. But Innsbruck suffered only mild-moderate bombing damage in the war. I still remember seeing a number of ruins when I was a small child in the 1950s.
1950
Where the Nazi banners were flying earlier, the flags of Austria and Innsbruck are up. Austria was occupied by the four powers, but managed to avoid being split up in an East-West divide like Germany. Full independence didn’t come until 1955. And that split-window car is a Steyr, not an early VW.
1951
This is an excellent-quality color shot; click on for full size. Looks like a Mercedes 170, followed by a car I don’t recognize. On the right side, the silver-gray car looks like a Chevrolet, and there’s the ubiquitous VW just past it.
1952
I’m a bit surprised at how many American cars there are in this shot; this isn’t downtown Cedar Rapids, after all. A fastback Chevy, followed by a Nash, and then another slightly older Chevy…oops; that black one is actually a big Opel, best as I can tell. It just happens to look American.
1956
I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I don’t recognize the blueish car, and I don’t have time to look it up. Another big Opel is sticking out behind it.
1964
The street cars have been noticeably absent so far, but here’s two of them in action. There were really only two generations of street cars in Innsbruck until recent years; these are the original ones going back to the electrification in 1905. New sleek Lohner cars were put in service on some routes in the 1950s, but the old trams were still in use into the 70s. And now they run in the summer on nostalgia runs. Fiat 600 on left; Ford Taunus on right.
1965
Utility trailers like this weren’t a very common sight back then, but this Mercedes is pulling one.
1966
The stereotypical Mercedes taxi. In the 50s, big American sedans were commonly used for taxis.
1968
Here we see a Simca 1000, an Opel Rekord, a Fiat 850 and another Rekord. Pretty typical cars for the time and place.
1970
Traffic is still light. An NSU Prinz has the road all to itself. Parked on the left is a BMW 2000 and 1967-1968 Mustang behind it.
1971
This is the same image as at the very top, and shows a diverse bunch of cars. On the left, what looks like a Fiat 500 is actually a Steyr-Puch 500 or 650. S-P bought bare 500 body shells/chassis, and installed their own engines, transmissions, brakes, etc. The S-P engine was a boxer twin, so it ran quite a bit smoother than the parallel twin in the Fiat 500. And the 650 TR was Austria’s answer to the little Abarth. My aunt had a S-P 650, and I have vivid memories of riding in it in 1969. I can still hear its twin at full chat in my ears now.
I’ll let you all have fun identifying the other cars.
1974
I know I’m showing you way too many of these shots, but I can’t not show this one with a rare NSU Ro80 in it.
And one from 2006, left by a commenter.
2014
I would have liked to show you some more from the 80s and 90s, but they’re not readily found. So we take a big jump into the present, or at the last few year. Beginning in 2006, the north section of Maria Theresian Strasse was converted into a pedestrian zone. The last time I was there, the street was all torn up. Now it’s back to being used similarly to how it was in the 1800s. The automobile era here was a relatively short one. And a hundred fifty years from now, finding images of this street with cars will be a quaint relic.
Vintage Innsbruck images via sagen.at
Nice to see the transition. Glad it moved back to a pedestrian mall.
Similar transition with Bourbon Street in New Orleans. At one time, it had streetcars on part of the street as well as paying host to Mardi Gras parades. Currently, it is blocked off during the big holidays to accommodate the tourist and locals celebrating.
Fascinating to see how much detail on the buildings changed while the basics stayed the same. The Nazi branding was somewhat OTT; disturbing as you say.
It looks like there might be horse tram tracks in 1898, towards the left. I think the car behind the Mercedes in 1951 is a 1948-52 Austin A40 (possibly the contemporary A70, but the screen doesn’t look wide enough), not 100% sure. On the other hand the Metallichrome blue car in 1956 is a 1955MY Vauxhall E series Cresta, Velox or Wyvern. 1971: obviously a 1968 type DS behind the S-P, then a Hillman Hunter.
A40 makes sense there. My first thought was Armstrong-Siddeley or Lanchester, either of which would be an odd thing to find in Austria!
The Brits were the first and most prolific tourists in this area gong way back. The resort town if Igls nearby was almost exclusively British for ages.
Mark Twain’s account of his visit to Switzerland in the 1860s suggests that with tourism, little has changed there since then. He encountered many nationalities there.
I think it’s a late ’30s -’40s Opel Kapitan. You can just see the windshield split, and it has that telltale Cord style mock transaxle hump below the grill.
Looks like a horse drawn something recently went by on the right side of the street…
It is actually a 1939 Opel Kapitän with its unique headlights shaped like the fenders front edge. The first postwar model had the same grille but standard round headlights.
It wouldn’t have been that odd if British troops were stationed in this part of post-war Austria.
Europe is just so much more advanced in city planning than we are. I suppose it is partly due to lack of space that the car is not taking centre stage in urban planning. It is simply easier and more convenient to move around via public transportation in many places, including where I live, yet most North American cities are designed around the car. Whenever I am in such a place, I feel stranded. I mean, get in a car and drive for fifteen minutes to get a litre of milk? I’d much rather have a fifteen minute walk.
Well, when your cities get blown up in a world war or two, you can be very creative in rebuilding them. I personally prefer cities which have experienced less history rather than more.
Innsbruck received very little damage in WW II, and the German cities I have visited and lived in were rebuilt in the old style. The only exception would be parts of downtown Berlin, but the street layout was retained.
Designing cities around the car is a North American innovation that in fact didn’t get going until the 1950’s.
In fact, it is possible to live downtown and in a quiet neighourhood, Chris M. I live two blocks from a major thoroughfare and four blocks from the centre of the city, yet my street is very quiet due to traffic calming.
I love living in walking city. We have much more contact with our community, burn less gas and keep healthy at the same time. I would never go back to suburbia, since I hate driving in the city.
That’s the penalty you pay for the land and the (relative) quiet of suburban-style neighborhoods, and I think has a lot to do with why we’re seeing movement back into downtowns and more urban areas. With the combination of the more wide-open spaces in North America, and our relative prosperity and lack of destruction after WWII, Canada and the USA developed Car Culture faster and in a more pervasive fashion, with predictably negative effects on urban planning.
Define your ‘advanced’. Scores of American cities tore out central streets to create pedestrian malls back in the 1970s. Problem? Americans didn’t want to walk outside to and in them, and just moved even more decidedly to those nice Malls in the suburbs. That advanced planning here caused even more urban decay and flight. It took an entirely different generation and ethos to restart the US Urban ethos towards the end of the 90’s and into the 2000s….
Yes, that was a common issue in the US. Eugene did that in the 70s, closing off several blocks downtown. The real problem was that the flight of retail to malls was unstoppable, and the downtown malls became dead zones. People don’t like dead zones, and the remaining stores moved out too.
Eugene opened up the streets again a few years back. And recently, downtown is booming again. I think it would be dangerous to correlate the two, since there has been a general move back to downtown vitality. And some US cities with closed off street “malls” did well with them.
The bigger issue was the pendulum shifting away from inner cities, and then back again. I don’t think closing the streets really was all that a significant factor in it.
Eugene’s downtown was likely diminished by the Valley River Mall, which opened around 1968. Prior to that, the Eugene downtown had everything a typical mid-size town had: Sears, Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney, Bon Marche, Newberry’s, Woolworth, three theaters (Fox, McDonald, and Heilig), all the major car dealerships were within a few blocks of the center of downtown, coin shops, toy shops, restaurants, drug stores, hippie boutiques, record shops, sporting goods, and a few major banks. I suppose in the long run, Valley River didn’t matter–as most of the aforementioned department stores are suffering (or out of business) regardless of location. It’s good to see Eugene’s downtown is starting to thrive again.
Pearl Street in Boulder and 16th Street in Denver had been converted into pedestrian zone in the late 1970s. Of course, there were a chorus of critics, declaring the hare-brained scheme in the automotive-centric areas to be a colossal failure and a massive waste of public fund. They bet Pearl Street would be reverted to automobile traffic in a few years.
To this day, the critics were totally wrong: both streets remain pedestrian zone and very much thriving and popular.
One thing that Denver got the formula right was adding a free shuttle bus service, MallRide, running through 16th Street between Union Station in the west and Broadway Street bus terminal in the east. The service is necessary due to length of 16th Street.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:16th-street-mallride.jpg
An item worthy noting about MallRide buses: they were one of first hybrid buses ever built in the 1990s before hybrid technology became common and proven.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Mall#The_MallRide
Paul,
I have been wonder something. Since you were born in Austria and your first language is German which you spoke for years before coming to the US and learning English, how do you pronounce Eugene? Do you pronounce it the German way (Oy-Ghen) or the American way (You-Gene)?
Innsbruck seems like a very pretty place and to be honest I have never sat and thought about the actual city of Innsbruck before. Most of my attention involving Innsbruck was geared to studying the Olympics so I have learned something new today.
If I pronounced it the German way, nobody would have a clue as to what I’m referring to. 🙂
I find the “correct” way to pronounce the names of places are whatever the inhabitants have decided it is, whether it seems right or not. Hence Pierre (peer) South Dakota, Norfolk (nor’ fork) Nebraska, and Louisville (lou’ a vull) Kentucky.
These are great pictures.
I was laughed at when I rhymed Arkansas with Kansas.
Another trap I ran into is “incandescent”. The syllable that carries the meaning is “cand” (candle) and should be accented. Nut not so in English.
How do you pronounce “Nevada, Iowa”?
Yea, in-can-des-ant is how I say it. I have always said it as Nuh-vahh-duhh.
For reasons unknown it is Nuh-vay-duhh, Iowa (small town). And it is Nuh-vahh-duhh, the state.
I always thought it was Pee-air, SD.
We may have been through Innsbruck, when I was about 9, during one of our vacations from Turkey What I remember most about Austria were the ski vacations in Kitzbuhel , where I remember seeing many BMWs during the late 60s.We stayed at a pension, which is a bed and breakfast chalet. Also remember a riding in a new bay window VW microbus taxi to the train station. From there we took the train to Salzburg, where we also spent a few days. My father is a classical music fan, and that’s where, composer Mozart grew up. We kids liked Salzburg, because of the movie, Sound Of Music was filmed there. From Salzburg, it was the Orient Express back to Istanbul. A few years later we rented an old Austrian farm house in the mountains of eastern Austria , north of Graz, near Bruck An Der Mur, if I spelled that right. We spent the summer hiking in the mountains every day. Austria is one of our favorite European countries, very beautiful and mountainous. During our travels through Europe, I became a fan of European cars.
An excellent series of pictures Paul, and no that’s not too many shots of the same street. I really learned to appreciate European city planning during my month in England in 1994, walkable with good public transit, old buildings preserved and repurposed. And nice and/or historic sites preserved and maintained by the National Trust.
I think the reason it’s so different in North America is twofold: First off we have the room to vitually abandon vast swaths of city or countryside (like old Route 66) whereas in Europe they simply do not. Second, for better or worse we have more of a profit and “don’t tell me what to do” driven society which encourages random new development and abandonment/destruction of aged things.
I’m sure you could right dozens of masters thesis’ on that, but I’ll just enjoy the pics again.
Very interesting to see the same view of Maria Theresian Strasse through the years. The architecture and mountain scenery is so beautiful. We really don’t have anything quite like that in America. Austria is on my bucket list, along with a number of neighboring and nearby countries. Hopefully within the next several years!
Very nice pictures, thank you for sharing, Paul.
The 1956 picture with the blue car to the left appears to have Dutch license tags.
Yes, RX-84-18. First registration between March 17, 1955 and April 21, 1955. (That’s what the letters RX say)
It’s a 1955 Vauxhall, as Bernard Taylor mentions above.
+1 on the 1955 Vauxhall, with holiday roofrack
Could the mystery car in the 1936 shot be a Vauxhal Velox?
It’s funny to think that, of all the places in the US your family could move to, they ended up in the famously flat Midwest!
The visible history of places is endlessly interesting. Cars have come and now gone from some American cities, too. I recommend “Cityscapes of Boston,” a compilation of then-and-now shots with essays by the Globe’s excellent architecture critic, Robert Campbell.
It was a rather abrupt transition. It’s hard to suddenly have no mountains around.
I moved from a village of 5000 at the foot of the Black Forest in Germany to Los Angeles in 1981 at the age of 11. Can you say Culture Shock?
Ja; Kulturschock!
Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte !
I had my Kulturschock as well. At least the Schwarzwald is not as high as the alps in Tirol! That made the shock half as bad—-maybe.
Jim, is it Kappelrodeck?
Wolfgang, from where to where was your journey?
I was born in Geisingen near Donaueschingen, then moved to Oberachern, now part of Achern in Baden, where I grew up. I then moved to Heidelberg and from there to Ames, Iowa. That was in 1986.
I see; another Iowa transplant.
I was amused to see that pontoon Mercedes pulling a trailer in 1965; my dad put a trailer hitch on his 1961 190Db to pull a utility trailer.
All the American cars showing up here and there made me think of a video I have that was produced in 1964 by the BBC and Austrian TV of what was then big news in the classical music world, the first studio recording of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. (This was undertaken by Decca, in Vienna, at the Sofiensäle, with the Vienna Philharmonic.) In one shot, the recording’s producer and the conductor are shown riding in a big Chrysler circa 1960. (Unfortunately, I don’t have picture!)
You’ll find it on youtube on any documentaries about the conductor, Georg Solti – I was impressed too by the big Chrysler with the slated headlights.
I’m curious how many families lacking Jewish connections opposed the Anschuss. After all, not a few Britons & Americans were impressed by Nat’l Socialism — Hiter was a man who “got things done,” wasn’t he? During the ’30s, Germany seemed very advanced & progressive, though nationalism might’ve held back many Austrians.
Speaking of Marie Theresa, the Marie Theresa Thaler became a de facto trade currency in the Middle East & Africa. It’s been minted by Austria (now as a bullion coin) since the 18th century, and other mints have “cloned” it as well.
I don’t know. My mother’s family, which had no Jewish blood, but was very devout Catholic, was also strongly anti-Hitler. From what I understand from her, it was a very divisive time that way; folks were either pro or con.
I was based in Vienna as a university student for 4 months in the late 1970’s and rented a room from a family in the western suburbs. There was still some uncomfortable conflict in that household, between the husband who thought Hitler wasn’t all bad and the wife who called him a murderer.
At the time it seemed like ancient history to me, but now of course 30 years doesn’t seem quite so long.
Great pics!
That was probably not uncommon. I knew a few neighbors that my mother said the same thing about them. Women are smarter then men. 🙂
Neil,
The timing of your comment is remarkable — I have an article scheduled for a few days from now that will mention the use of the Maria Theresa thaler as currency in the Middle East well into the 20th Century.
That’s a surprising bit of monetary trivia I stumbled across recently. One would think those areas would’ve used the Pound or Franc, given Austria’s lack of foreign colonies. Some tradition-minded cultures trust nothing but specie.
Austria became a sort of sidekick to Imperial Germany after they were defeated in 1866 in the Austro-Prussian War. This was part of Bismarck’s grand plan; unlike Kaiser Wilhelm II who displaced him, he was a master diplomat.
What a great collection of photos! The camera is truly one of the great inventions, something that permits someone to indefinitely preserve a teeny slice of time that in real life completely disappears, never to return.
I am sure that several books have been written on the differing cycles of development and redevelopment of cities in various parts of the world. Truly fascinating stuff.
I think much of it boils down to America (especially west of the Allegheny mountains) represents the choices made for a given era when there were few constraints on what could be built. The old cities of Europe developed in a much earlier age that predated the kind of commerce and industry that was behind most American development. Timing may not be everything, but it is quite a bit.
If you ever have a chance go to Europe and visit a medieval town with a complete wall and gates. For example Carcasonne en Provence, or Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany, better yet a smaller lesser known town like Ladenburg near Heidelberg. Everybody wanted to live inside the walls for safety and the streets and alleys are extremely narrow. There is nothing like that in the “new world”. Here is plenty of space. In Europe today’s cars still need to navigate medieval city streets. In North America the streets were built for cars. I know it started with the covered wagons, but towns were never walled in.
Blueish car you dont recognize is a EIP Vauxhall 55-57 chrome V on the bonnet identifies it as a Velox (Cresta would be gold)
Fascinating pictures, thanks for sharing!
It’s amazing how the street was preserved since the 1800s, and not taken over by ugly, modern buildings. Very impressive!
I liked the old cars too—I spent my childhood in Athens in the 1970s, cars are very familiar–if anything, thanks to the warm, dry weather, it was not uncommon for a family’s first car from the 60s to still be in service, sometimes in the same family, in the 1980s and 90s (until the price of new cars dropped AND the govt incentivized the removal of the noxious old cars)
I visited Salzburg in my 20s during the 90s–now I want to go to Innsbruck.
Lovely town, just how I picture it in my mind. Aside from the Nazi shenanigans, this looks like it was a beautiful place to live.Wish I grew up here as opposed to bland, middle class Brooklyn, NY. Very Sound of Music-Von Trapp ish, a good thing.
Nice to see that near-pure, narrowed PCC car on the streets of Innsbruck in those shots from the 70s! After the war, they built them in Europe (Belgium?) but I didn’t know of any cities in Austria that had them – maybe a later, previously-owned, purchase? Surprised to see the Trams removed with the pedestrianization of the street now — where’d they move the line? Electric transport is supposed to be in, no?
Wow! Love this and thanks for sharing! I’m a history buff and visit Shorpy.com for the pics. I can almost hear the clip-clop of horse hooves on the pavement in the pre-auto era. And no sound of airplanes overhead and no microwave towers emitting beams that fry our brains. Ahhhh….the good ol’ days!
Very interesting write up Paul. Could anyone ever tire of that view? It’s hard to imagine seeing that looming beautiful mountain every day as you walk down the street..
I was wondering the name of the mountain.
If not already named, may I nominate “Mt. Niedermeyer?”
It’s at it’s best in the winter. We could always see it from the balcony on the back of our apartment.
So cool, Paul! Thanks! 🙂
Mountains like that are why Austria is a power in competitive downhill skiing.
A fascinating bit of extended time-lapse photography.
Easy to get lost in these pics. Thanks Paul.
Terrific photos ! .
I live near the base of a Mountain Range but nothing so beautiful as this .
I also recognized the PCC Trolleys , too bad they’re almost all gone now .
-Nate
These are Austrian-built Lohner trolleys, but they quite likely owe their design to the pioneering PCC cars.
Hardly – here in Vienna they were supposed to be replaced by the “Carrerawurm” (a new, low-floor type styled by Porsche Design, hence the referrence to the Carrera) but Wienerlinien does not have the budget so they’re here to stay for quite some time, in fact I can see one from my office window now…
Having logged many miles on these in the 1960’s , your comments make me very happy .
Form Follows Function .
-Nate
Nate, for sure, but the older ones are not wheelchair-compatible and I believe all new trams and buses must be like that by way of EU law. However, at the current rate, it will take a few years before the old ones are fully gone. The other thing is that they cannot fit (or easily fit) aircon to them, something which the new ones have and – in light of weather changes – is no luxury anymore (Vienna can get surprisingly hot in the summer).
” Nate, for sure, but the older ones are not wheelchair-compatible and I believe all new trams and buses must be like that by way of EU law. However, at the current rate, it will take a few years before the old ones are fully gone. The other thing is that they cannot fit (or easily fit) aircon to them, something which the new ones have and – in light of weather changes – is no luxury anymore (Vienna can get surprisingly hot in the summer).”
No doubt but because I’m a pedant (or maybe too stubborn/stupid for my own good) I’d rather sweat in a PCC Car than a new air conditioned one here in the Desert , struggle up the steep steps with my cane and so on .
I remember when I was a kid the fans in them often didn’t work and the old grumpy folks would begin to holler when use kids who were gasping for breath , opened the windows…
Luckily I don’t have to ride the Trolley or Bus much here but any time I’m in Boston , I make time to ride .
-Nate
Carrerawurm (I think made by Bombardier)
Lohner
Paul, after driving past Innsbruck from Rosenheim heading off south to Monaco many times and not stopping in, next time I will! Innsbruck looks fantastic, just like many German towns off the beaten track. (I particularly enjoy Garmish-Partenkirchen).
KJ in Oz
Isnt Innsbruck just lovely? Last summer, I took an American colleague from Indianapolis down there, and he loved it ever since he stepped out from the airplane that landed on this tiny airport surrounded by mountains. As a matter of fact, he said that Innsbruck is probably the most beautiful place he has been to in Europe. And he´s been to many places.
By the way: Its the city with the most projecting alcoves on the bowfront.(had to look that word up 😉
I think one further difference between US and European cities is the fact that most large European cities had and have advanced publich transport systems. I live and work in Vienna and you really don’t need a car to get around, it’s that good. I have a yearly ticket, costing € 350, which allows me to use any means of public transport within greater Vienna, that is, not just the trams and the underground but the buses and any regional or suburban trains passing through that area. I’m a car guy but since having sold my prevoius car I have not had the need to replace it (although this will happen, sooner or later…), it’s cheaper and quicker to get to work with the “Offis” (that’s the nickname for any public transport means). By the way, they are closing streets to car traffic here too: no less than Mariahilferstrasse (Vienna’s main shopping street) has been made partially car-free for a couple of months now and the experiment seems to have succeeded.
I don’t know if anyone commented on the bicycles. They were part of the scene for a very long time. The last shot would indicate they are the winners. At least as a way to get to the pedestrian zone.
Great shots Paul.
I particularly like the later 1950/6070s photos – they were the sort of photos that kept me going through language class at school.
As it happens, I was in Salzburg just a month ago – one of my favourite cities even if the CC count is now quite low.
You were rubbish in language classes!
Great picyptures – fascinating to follow the changes over time. Anybody want to do another one?
I visited Innsbruck approx. 30 times between 1972 and 2009(my last trip)
What a beautiful, friendly city.
Stayed at some different hotels over the years: Hotel Goldener Stern, Graure Bar, Hotel Innsbruck with an amazing view from the lobby, Hotel Maria Theresia.
What wonderful memories of skiing and tours. I would love to go there again, but age prevents it. I, do, however, have wonderful thoughts about Innsbruck.
I now keep track of ski areas around Innsbruck by webcam apps on my iPad.
Are you sure the split-window car in the 1950 photo isn’t a Lancia Aprilia?
No I’m not, now that you mention it. Looks more like an Aprilia. I made a hasty call due to the Steyr being much more common.
Thanks for reposting this in 2021. Here’s a photo from 2006 to go between the last two.
I can’t get 2014 to appear. Maybe this one will work.
I think I fixed it now.
Thanks. I just added it.
That isn’t a Dog Cart – that’s the first Greyhound pulling into Innsbruck!
Zooming in on the 1971 photo, is that street car off the tracks?
2014: “We cannot complete this request, remote data could not be fetched.”
Beautiful shots! I found it hard reading your prose because I was too interested in the photos, so I had to go back through it again. Fascinating photos.
Gents and Ladies this is a great presentation by Paul and the comments are informative. Also, some funny comments which I enjoy. I can add only one thing: My German girl friend, Heidi, who I dated in the late 1960’s, told me of her uncles Mercedes. “It is a 170, an old Mercedes, but it is still a Mercedes.” Obviously there is pride in ownership of a Mercedes. Your 1951 pictures has that car in it. Guten Errinerrungen von Heidi von Neu Ulm!