I got to Innsbruck after a whole day on the train from Berlin. I didn't sleep a minute because there were transfers and I was terrified of missing my stop. I got off with my hair all over the place, without having eaten anything all day, and with a strange mix of exhaustion and anger. Because this city wasn't on my list for its mountains. It was on my list for Gigi D'Agostino.

The plan was perfect, almost ridiculously perfect: my hotel was literally across the street from the Olympiahalle, the arena where the concert was going to be. All I had to do was cross the street. You can see the arena from the window. I filmed it, because otherwise I wouldn't believe it.

The Olympiahalle isn't just any venue: it opened in 1963 and hosted figure skating and ice hockey at the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics, plus the first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner and Dire Straits have played there. And I was going to see Gigi there. Was.

On June 1st, two days before, the promoter Semtainment announced it was postponing the Innsbruck and Linz shows "due to internal technical matters related to our production". According to the promoter and Olympiaworld, neither Gigi nor his agency were to blame. New dates: Linz on December 3, 2026 and Innsbruck on April 2, 2027. All very nice, but I crossed an ocean and built an almost three-week trip around those two nights. And it isn't the first time: in 2016 Gigi was supposed to play Mexico for the first time, at the EMPO Awards in Arena Ciudad de México, and that also fell through at the last minute. Twice isn't bad luck anymore, it's a pattern. It hurts to say it because I've listened to him forever, but today I feel like the fan who got all dressed up with nowhere to go.

And since the universe doesn't know when to stop: that same night I found out someone had used my hotel booking data. I got charged for the room three times: the original, correct charge, plus two more "in the hotel's name" that neither the hotel nor Booking recognize. There was a data leak somewhere. I've filed the claim with my bank, but that's almost twelve thousand pesos frozen until it's resolved. Welcome to Austria.

The next day I did the only thing you can do when the plan collapses: go for a walk. And that's where Innsbruck disarmed me.

The old town starts with the Stadtturm, the city tower. It was built between 1442 and 1450 next to the old town hall, and the onion dome was added in 1560. It's 51 meters tall, with a viewing platform at 31 meters reached by 133 steps. From below, with that sky, it looks painted.

Walking down Herzog-Friedrich-Straße, the famous Goldenes Dachl, the Golden Roof, appears at the end. Emperor Maximilian I had it built in 1500 to celebrate his marriage to Bianca Maria Sforza. It has 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles, and it worked as an imperial box: from there the emperor watched tournaments and festivities in the square. Basically the VIP area of the 16th century.

Then I walked down to the river. The city's name says it all: Innsbruck means "bridge over the Inn". It was born as a medieval crossing of that river, which runs greenish-grey with impressive force, straight from the glaciers.

Behind everything is the Nordkette, the mountain range you can see from anywhere in the city. A funicular goes up to Hungerburg, with stations designed by Zaha Hadid, and then cable cars continue to the Hafelekar at about 2,300 meters. I didn't go up; seeing it from below was already plenty.

And then there's the photo everyone takes, and for good reason: the colorful houses of Mariahilf on the bank of the Inn, with the Nordkette towering above. They range from late medieval to baroque, and together with the Golden Roof they're the icon of the city. The neighborhood next door, St. Nikolaus, is the oldest in Innsbruck.

I'll say it how I felt it: this looks like a showroom TV. Like when you walk into a department store in Mexico and they have that super-bright screen in store mode, colors cranked up so you fall in love with it. That's what the landscapes look like here. The sun, the shadows the clouds cast on the mountains, the colorful buildings; together it looks unreal. My photos are from my phone, and even though it's a very good phone, they fall short of what you see in person.

The main avenue is Maria-Theresien-Straße: pedestrian, full of cafés and people, with the mountains closing the view at the end. Halfway down stands the Annasäule, St. Anne's Column.

The column commemorates July 26, 1703, St. Anne's Day, when the Tyroleans drove out the Bavarian troops that had invaded Tyrol during the War of the Spanish Succession. They vowed to build it in gratitude and consecrated it in 1706. It's made of red marble by Cristoforo Benedetti, with the Virgin on a golden crescent moon at the top. Three centuries later it's still the city's meeting point.

That evening, at the time I should have been lining up across from the hotel to get into the concert, I recorded this:

And to top it off, on the last day it rained. The one truly spectacular thing the city has, the mountains, vanished behind the clouds. They took even that from me.

What do I take from Innsbruck? That it's probably one of the cities with the best views in the world: mountains, river, colorful little houses, imperial history on every corner. What I didn't love was the food: Tyrolean cooking is heavy and heavily seasoned, with dishes like Tiroler Gröstl (potatoes, onions and bacon fried up with a fried egg on top) or Kaspressknödel (bread-and-mountain-cheese dumplings, flattened and fried). And the people, although they try to be friendly, speak English with a Tyrolean accent I honestly struggled to follow. To be fair, they're warmer than the Spanish.

Next stop: Linz. Where, by the way, there was also a Gigi concert. You can imagine how that story ends.

Me on the bridge over the Inn

Me on Maria-Theresien-Straße