Which leaves Mittenwald, a small town in the Isar Valley which (in Baedeker-speak) is more than worth a detour. Situated just two kilometers from the Austrian border, it is one of the finest community in the Bavarian Alps — and certainly one that deserves a journey in its own right.

Anton Maller, one of Mittenwald’s master violin makers.

Topography

Mittenwald’s appeal is twofold. First there’s a very strong sense of topography, suggesting a town as comfortably settled on this earth as God is in Heaven. To the west of Mittenwald is the Wetterstein Range and to the east the strong line of the Karwendel Alps. The Isar, on its journey north towards the Danube, cuts between the two, and Mittenwald thus occupies a gloriously sunny spot on one the major south-to-north trade routes through Europe.

Master craftsmen

The town’s second trump card is its hallmark industry: violin-making. The craft so often associated only with Cremona in northern Italy is actually found elsewhere in Europe. There have been historic centers of string instrument production in the Ergebirge, the Vosges and the Alps. And Mittenwald is a bright star in this industry. Music and Mittenwald naturally go together.

Men like Anton Maller perpetuate a Mittenwald tradition that extends back over more than three centuries. He, like the other master violin-makers in Mittenwald, focuses on top-of-the-range hand-crafted instruments. They rely on local resources, working with the swing and feel of the wood.

Mittenwald’s museum dedicated to the history of violin making.

Museum of violin making

Mittenwald has an excellent Geigenbaumuseum (Museum of Violin Making), which nicely explains how a variety of local woods and local skills have shaped Mittenwald’s economic direction. The museum is open daily except Mondays — bar for a few weeks each fall when it closes completely.

More than violins

Above all, Mittenwald is just a fine place to be. No ifs, no buts. If you have a day or two to spare on a crowded itinerary around Europe, take time out to lay up in Mittenwald. There is a feast of Lüftlmalerei on the town’s buildings (Bavaria’s homespun version of antique graffiti), and a number of good cafés and restaurants. The Fasl-Beck is good for hearty Bavarian fodder, but for something more modern in style head for the Restaurant Osteria or the chic Michelin-listed Marktrestaurant.

Luftlmalerei on the facade of one of Mittenwald’s many cafés.

Getting there

Frequent Regional Express trains from Munich Hauptbahnhof to Mittenwald take two hours for the run. One variant of the bargain Werdenfels-Ticket extends to Munich, allowing one person to make a day trip from Munich to Mittenwald for €18 return. For groups, the Bayern-Ticket is the best deal. For €38 a group of five adults can roam across Bavaria for a day using a Regional Express and all local trains.

Mittenwald is just one hour north of Innsbruck, and is thus easily reached by travelers from the Austrian Tyrol. Just south-west of Mittenwald is the Leutasch Valley, one of the most beautiful parts of the Austrian Tyrol. Austrian Postbus Route 4186 takes just a few minutes from Mittenwald to reach the Leutasch villages. This is rural Europe at its best. Walk by day and return to Mittenwald to relax in the evening.

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Here are some tips for visiting Innsbruck on a budget:

1. Fly there

Innsbruck is one of the few ski towns with an airport, and in my opinion the only affordable one. Low-cost airlines fly in and out of the valley numerous times a day, which beats the frequent changes and possible weather delays travelers encounter when taking the train (and rarely are there special rail offers coming from surrounding countries).

Drink here!

2. Ski there

Another plus is Innsbruck’s convenient location to ski areas. Over a dozen different resorts surround the town and are accessible by car and public bus. Terrain varies from steep back country to easygoing trails and many freestyle parks.

Cheapo Tip: Buy the half-day tickets for the best rate. Rental stores are not only abundant, but also offer competitive prices.

3 Drink there

Innsbruck is one of those legendary European locations where beer flows cheaper than water, and I recommend taking advantage of it. Stiegl, Ottakringer, Zillertal and the local brewery Theresienbrau are some of the best beers on tap.

Beware, however, that Austrian beer sizes follow that of their Bavarian cousins: The average size is a half-liter stein.

4. Sled there

The old-fashioned wooden sleds are cheap, easy to handle and a lot of fun. Any winter sports rental store will carry sleds, and it’s a perfect activity for when the streets are snowed over. Watch out for the cars, stick to the daytime and bundle up—these mini race cars can move it!

5. Sleep there

On top of being a good deal for winter sports and food, Innsbruck has a lot to choose from for accommodation. There are a handful of Innsbruck hostels that stay cozy at a low cost and plentiful cheap hotels in Innbruck. Even bed and breakfasts can be found at a lower price than other more touristy Austrian ski towns. Do a search in the box above to see options.

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Zoos are great spots for people watching and, for anyone with even only a passing interest in architecture, zoos often boast some of the finest buildings in a city. Few of Europe’s leading architects have not at one time or another turned their hand to zoo buildings.

To the Alpenzoo in Innsbruck

On the top of our list of zoos for fans of great contemporary architecture is Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol, where even the ride from town up to the zoo is an architectural feast. The Hungerburgbahn is a funicular railway from the middle of Innsbruck, Austria to the Alpenzoo. This mountain railway was rebuilt in 2007, and Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid was commissioned to design the stations along the route. Her designs are breathtaking.

Unpack your trunk in Copenhagen

One of our favorite modern zoo buildings is the elephant house at Copenhagen Zoo, designed by Foster and Partners. Norman Foster is more associated with glitzy showpiece efforts, but the understated earthiness of the new structure at Copenhagen Zoo is evidently elephant bliss. One of Foster’s colleagues is reported as saying that going back to designing buildings for grumpy humans will be no fun after working on the Copenhagen elephant house.

Penguin bliss in London

The London Zoo has a galaxy of architectural gems, the the most striking of which is the seductive Penguin pool designed by the Georgian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin in 1934.

Lubetkin and his progressive architectural alliance (known as Tecton) secured many commissions for zoo buildings across Britain, of which the finest collection is at the Dudley Zoo in the English Midlands (midway between the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton).

Dudley: The Lubetkin legacy

A little improbably, Dudley thus hosts the best collection of Constructivist buildings anywhere outside the former Soviet Union. The uncompromising modernity of the Dudley Zoo took visitor’s breath away when the zoo opened in 1937.

More than 70 years later, the buildings are showing signs of age, but they alone still justify a visit to the town, though curiously the Dudley Zoo Web site makes no significant mention of what many might judge to be the zoo’s greatest asset.

Lubetkin was a star architect of the 20th century. But is it not ironic that the greatest beneficiaries of an architect so committed to a vision of a better society were not humans at all, but rather apes and penguins?

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Whether you’re traveling by boat, train, or rail, the eager anticipation at arriving to a new destination in Europe often makes us miss the best bit of the entire journey—the moment of arrival.

Arriving by boat

Some of Europe’s finest arrivals are by sea. There may be no great drama in arriving in Iceland on the Smyril Line ship Norröna from Denmark. Instead, there is the sheer beauty of the lonely eastern fjords and the knowledge that this is how the first settlers arrived on the island over a thousand years ago.

And Venice is really at her best arriving on a summer morning after a long ferry journey up the Adriatic. Last time we took the Minoan Lines ferry from Corfu, it crept into Venice at about eight in the morning, the giant ship dwarfing the buildings on the famous Venetian skyline. Never did San Marco look so good.

Approaching London by train

Arrivals by train offer their own peculiar theater. London has not just one but two of the very best in Europe. The last half hour of Eurostar’s run into London from the Channel Tunnel is rich in dramatic aesthetics.

The railway skirts Kentish hop fields, dives under the North Downs, crosses the Medway on a spectacular viaduct, before a tantalizing series of tunnels bring the railway back above ground for a graceful, seemingly endless, curve into London’s St Pancras station – now handsomely restored to reclaim its status as easily the most elegant of London’s railroad termini.

Speeding into Paddington

If there is a rival to the  Eurostar run into London, it is the fifteen-minute hop on the Heathrow Express from London’s principal airport into Paddington station.

The run out of Heathrow is unremarkable, and gives no hint of what is to come. But free of the airport tunnel, the 12 mile journey on Brunel’s Great Western route into Paddington is a fabulous feast for the senses. The train storms past Victorian water towers and canals. There are art deco factories, a magnificent Sikh temple, eerie wastelands, and the back gardens of endless terraces of small houses. All of English life is laid bare for the traveler arriving in London.

True, the Heathrow Express costs a little more than the tube, but it is worth the premium fare. Few other such short journeys by train are so richly entertaining. And speed brings its own benefits. Last time we used Heathrow Express, we were enjoying a beer in our hotel room at Lancaster Gate less than half an hour after boarding the train at Heathrow.

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