Weekend in Dornbirn Austria

We spent the weekend in the city of Dornbirn in the western part of Austria near the Swiss border. Dornbirn is an industrial city in the Rhein Valley at the foot of Karren Mountain. It has a population of about 45,000 at this moment. It's not exactly a tourist destination - we were there for Jasmine's climbing event. While Jasmine and David were at the climbing gym, Lila and I got to spend a few hours in the city.

View from the windows of Hirschen Hotel. The hotel offered a sumptuous breakfast buffet (arguably, drowning in good food is almost as good as drowning in good views:-)

There was a tram that can take us up the mountain to get a good view of the city and valley. We decided to skip it due to the misty weather condition. There was a farmer's market in downtown with some December merriments so we checked it out. The market was small but there were a few interesting buildings in the town center.

Dornbirn downtown farmer's market.

Dornbirn downtown BBQ.

From downtown, it was but a short stroll to a popular science museum called Inatura. We found some interesting sights along the way including a tree with its autumn glory still largely intact.

Chasing pigeons outside of Kunstraum.

Dornbirn Kunstraum ("Art Space").

A strong push :-)

Inatura is known for its interactive, hands on science exhibitions for the kids. Lila was mesmerized by the experiments involving the motions of various objects as well as a machine that created a mini tornado using water vapors. She was not very impressed by the taxidermy scattered throughout the museum, especially those concerning animal babies. "So sad", she said. I found it hard to disagree with her!

A lynx display.

A family checking out the lynx (well, at least the toddler was:-)

Watching a "tornado" in the making.

Calling out to the pigeons.