Dear Innsbruck Airport – a love letter

Dear Innsbruck Airport, it just happened. I’m only one of many on your runway, but for me you are very special. Small airport, big emotions. And they came to stay.

Seriously, how can an international airport like you be so incredibly cute? Yes, international! That still knocks my socks off, so modest, almost shy you lie there in the Höttinger Au.
Shy, but well attended. So I’m probably not the only one who could end up with you… too bad! Say, may I please say INN to you?

Boarding by foot: No need for transport bussed at Innsbruck Airport

Oh INN, you’re just sooo nice! Just the way you are nestled so idyllically between mountain slopes and alpine meadows, next to tiny access roads and cute mini car parks.

And then there is the amazing approach through the beautiful Inn Valley, worth a picture-postcard, that will be your home forever while you prefer to say goodbye to your neighbors instead that depart to distant countries. Who could blame you for that?

I remember the first time I sailed gently in your direction, with my face pressed against the cold airplane window and my heart doing somersault as I got more and more excited, while the small prop airliner went deeper and deeper. And if I remember correctly, even the propellers of the airplane were shouting for joy.

The picturesque approach to Innsbruck Airport

So we past Munich, we past the hills of the Allgäu Alps and the snow-capped peaks, so picturesque, as if God himself had put the final touches before he pressed the OK button. His magnum opus.

With mountain slopes that in winter times look as if Bob Ross himself would have tried his whitest opaque white on it. And that in summer come up so juicy-green, that one feels almost entranced to simply bite into it with gusto. Yam!

Oh Innsbruck Airport, you are so incredibly idyllic. With the tiny tower, the discreet runway and a handful of gates, with whom you come up full of pride.

No queues, no worries at Innsbruck Airport

Innsbruck Airport: What an open-minded one

This pathway of Innsbruck Airport is made for walking

But then again you exercise modesty. Because when it comes to hard facts you, dear Innsbruck Airport, are the largest airport in Tyrol and even in western Austria! That is actually something Orly in Paris can not even dream of. Or Stansted in London. Or Weeze in the district of Kleve on the Lower Rhine in Germany.

And how could I ever forget your security staff, that in contrast to the employees of so many other airports belongs to the extremely rare species, which does not suffer from the masses of air travelers, that mostly all want to go through security check at the same time and of course as quickly as possible with minimal obstructions.
Namely in a place where there is even enough time for a little conversation, a chummy slap on the back or a small old boys joke.

At Innsbruck Airport, propeller airplanes are at home.

And yet despite all the tranquility one may prefer not to look away at departure, in the moment when the plane goes higher and higher and with every meter an even more breathtaking mountain scenery unfolds in front of you. Like a never-ending panorama wallpaper but much more real and colorful.
With the Nordkette, Nockspitze, Patscherkofel, Glungezer and all the other valleys, tops and peaks of your home that is Tyrol.

Wave goodbye to your own shadow at Innsbruck Airport

The spectacular view of Innsbruck after departure at Innsbruck Airport

And then there is this moment, one literally hangs at the window continually twisting one’s head to even catch the very last possible glimpse and to burn this very picture into one’s memory for a long long time. At least until we meet again, right?

Start at Innsbruck Airport and conquer the Alps

Oh, actually, you’re no airport for a night or a day. No INN, you’re more of an Airport to linger, not for traveling. Or even better, to always land and take off again and land again and leave again until the day comes to an end, millions of crystal stars pop up in the sky and the Alpine peaks gradually start to glow.

Yes, dear Innsbruck airport, yes, I will. I will always come back as often as possible. I promise.

See you soon, my dear. See you soon.

Find more unforgettable impressions of my winter travels through Tyrol with this blog post: On cloud nine – 5 days, 5 Tyrolean glaciers and 1000 impressions!

Thanks to the girls at Tirol Werbung for giving me the opportunity to experience Tyrol and get butterflies in my stomach!

Did you ever fly from or to Innsbruck Airport? Don’t you dare to fall in love as well… Oh you already did? Leave a comment!

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