Bergisel Ski Jump Viewing Platform

Standing where the ski jumpers stand, more or less

There is a particular kind of vertigo that has nothing to do with height and everything to do with angle. Most viewpoints above Innsbruck put you on a flat platform looking outward. The Bergisel viewing platform puts you beside a curved white ramp that drops away in front of you at a gradient your legs immediately understand as wrong for walking, let alone skiing. That is the first thing people say after coming down: not “what a view,” though it is, but some version of “I did not expect the in-run itself to be the interesting part.”

The Bergisel has been a competition hill for well over a century, but the structure standing there now is recent. It was rebuilt to a design by the architect Zaha Hadid and opened in 2002, replacing an older tower with a single sculptural mast that carries the jump’s in-run, a café, and the public viewing level in one continuous curved form.

It is worth knowing this is not a static monument. Every January, the hill hosts a leg of the Four Hills Tournament, the World Cup ski-jumping series that moves between Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, and for a few days the quiet public platform becomes a grandstand packed with people in team colours and cowbells ringing off the Nordkette wall opposite.

The view, and why it is different from the Nordkette’s

Innsbruck already has one famous high viewpoint on the far side of the valley: the Nordkette, reached by cable car in stages up to Hafelekar at over two thousand metres. The Bergisel does something else. It is much lower and much closer to the city, and instead of putting the Inn valley beneath you as a map, it puts the old town in front of you as a stage set, with the Nordkette itself filling the skyline behind it. Photographs from the Nordkette look down at Innsbruck; photographs from the Bergisel platform look across at it, with the mountain as backdrop rather than the mountain as subject.

Viewpoint	Approx. character	Distance from old town	What’s in the frame
Bergisel platform	Low, close, urban-edge	Short tram or bus ride	Old town + Nordkette wall behind it
Nordkette (Hafelekar)	High alpine	Funicular + two cable car stages	Full Inn valley, city as a strip below
Patscherkofel	Mid-altitude, southern side	Cable car from Igls	Broader valley, less city detail

None of the three replaces the others; visitors doing a longer stay often take in both the Bergisel and the Nordkette on different days precisely because the two views answer different questions about the same city.

What the tower actually gives you

The public route up the Bergisel tower is short compared with a cable car ride, and that is part of its appeal — it is a half-hour diversion rather than a half-day excursion. Inside, a lift and stairs bring visitors to the viewing level that sits alongside the upper section of the in-run, close enough to see the grooved track surface and the steep pitch that jumpers accelerate down before launch. This site does not have a verified ticket price or an exact tower height to quote here, and it would rather say that plainly than guess; what matters more for planning is that the visit itself is brief, self-contained, and easy to combine with other things on the same afternoon.

Access is generally straightforward and does not require advance booking for most visitors, though anyone travelling around a Four Hills Tournament date in January should expect the hill to be busier, partially closed to casual sightseeing during competition setup, and worth checking before a special trip. For a guided version that adds context you would not get reading signage alone, a private guided visit to the Bergisel ski jump covers both the platform and the history of the hill in one sitting, useful for visitors who want the story of Andreas Hofer’s 1809 battle and the site’s Olympic layers explained rather than pieced together.

Independent visitors who just want platform access and a ticket in hand can go with the straightforward entry ticket to the Bergisel Olympia ski jump arena, which is the simplest way to get up the tower without committing to a longer tour.

The layer most visitors miss: two Olympics, not one

It is an easy mistake to make, and this page wants to correct it directly: Innsbruck did not host the Winter Olympics once. It hosted them twice, in 1964 and again in 1976, and later staged the Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012. The Bergisel has been rebuilt across that whole span — the hill used in 1964 was not the same structure used in 1976, and neither is the Zaha Hadid tower standing today. What survives across all three eras is the site itself and its function: a competition ski jump on the southern edge of the city, visible from most of the old town, still hosting international sport rather than existing purely as a museum piece.

That distinction matters for how to plan a visit. Someone arriving expecting a single fixed monument to a single Games will misread what they are looking at. The Bergisel is closer to a working stadium with a long institutional memory than to a plaque-and-photo memorial, and the annual Four Hills Tournament leg every January is the clearest proof of that — real athletes, real competition, real crowds, on the same hill where Olympic history happened twice.

Das Tirol Panorama, at the foot of the hill

At the base of the Bergisel sits Das Tirol Panorama, home to a giant circular painting depicting the 1809 Battle of Bergisel, a defining moment in Tyrolean history led by Andreas Hofer. The museum and the ski jump share the same hill and the same ticketed grounds in places, and many visitors combine both in one outing. This page keeps its focus on the tower and the platform experience rather than the museum’s exhibits, which deserve their own dedicated visit and their own separate page; readers wanting the painting and the battle itself explained in depth should look there.

What is worth knowing here is simply that the two sites sit within easy walking distance of each other, so a Bergisel visit rarely needs to be either the tower or the museum — for most people it is both, on the same afternoon, without much extra travel time.

Getting there from the old town

The Bergisel sits on the southern edge of Innsbruck, closer to the centre than either the Nordkette or Patscherkofel lift stations. From Maria-Theresien-Strasse or the old town, it is a short tram or bus ride, and fit visitors sometimes walk it in the twenty-to-thirty-minute range, climbing gently through residential streets on the way up. There is no need to plan around lift schedules or weather windows the way a Nordkette or glacier excursion demands — the Bergisel is a city-edge site, accessible in ordinary shoes on an ordinary afternoon, which is part of why it works well as a half-day add-on rather than a full expedition.

Visitors staying in the old town and building a first full day around the city’s core sights, rather than the mountains, often slot the Bergisel in alongside the Golden Roof and Maria-Theresien-Strasse as part of an Innsbruck old town one-day plan. Those wanting to pair the city view with the higher alpine one can look at a two-day Nordkette-focused itinerary and simply add the Bergisel as a shorter stop on the town day.

Combining it with other things nearby

Because the visit is short, the Bergisel pairs naturally with other central Innsbruck activities rather than standing alone as a full day out. A segway tour through the old town that finishes with brunch at the Bergisel Schanze is one way several operators package this: a segway city tour through Innsbruck ending with brunch at the Bergisel ski jump covers both the historic streets and the hill in one structured outing, useful for visitors short on time who still want to see both.

For those who prefer walking at their own pace with a guide’s commentary rather than a fixed itinerary, a private walking tour of Innsbruck can be built to include the Bergisel alongside the old town’s other landmarks, tailored to whatever else is on the day’s list.

If the goal is simply an efficient loop of the city’s headline sights on foot before or after the ski jump, the Innsbruck old town walking guide and the Innsbruck Olympic heritage walk both route past or near the Bergisel and connect it back to the rest of the centre without wasted backtracking.

Photography and timing notes

The platform faces roughly north toward the old town and the Nordkette, which makes late afternoon and early evening light generally more flattering than the middle of the day, when the sun sits high and behind the viewer rather than lighting the mountain face. Clear winter days after a Föhn wind — the warm south wind locals both credit and blame for sudden weather shifts — often give the sharpest visibility of the Nordkette’s rock face from the platform, though the same wind can also mean a shorter, more changeable window before cloud rolls back in.

Anyone specifically chasing photographs of the tower’s architecture from ground level, rather than the view from inside it, will find the strongest angles from the park below, where the full curve of Zaha Hadid’s design against the sky is visible in one frame — a useful contrast to the closer, more literal angles from the Hungerburgbahn stations she designed on the opposite side of the valley.

Common questions about visiting the Bergisel ski jump platform

Is the Bergisel ski jump still used for competition?

Yes. It hosts a leg of the Four Hills Tournament, the World Cup ski-jumping series, every January, and the surrounding Bergisel park stays a working sports site rather than a retired monument.

Did Innsbruck host the Winter Olympics only once?

No. Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in 1964 and 1976, and also staged the Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012. The Bergisel jump has been rebuilt more than once across that span, most recently to the current Zaha Hadid design opened in 2002.

Who designed the current Bergisel tower?

The architect Zaha Hadid designed the current tower, opened in 2002. She also designed the Hungerburgbahn funicular stations on the Nordkette side of the city, so the two structures share a visual language.

Can I go inside Das Tirol Panorama from the ski jump?

The Tirol Panorama museum sits at the foot of the Bergisel hill and is reachable on the same visit, but it is a separate ticketed building with its own circular painting of the 1809 Battle of Bergisel, and this page does not cover it in detail.

How do I get to the Bergisel from Innsbruck’s old town?

The Bergisel sits on the southern edge of the city, an easy tram or bus ride from Maria-Theresien-Strasse, and is close enough that some visitors walk it in around twenty to thirty minutes uphill.

Is the viewing platform the same as standing where ski jumpers start?

The public platform is positioned to give a view along the in-run and out over the city, rather than placing visitors exactly at the athletes’ starting gate, which stays a competition area.

Is the Bergisel worth it if I am not interested in skiing?

Most visitors come for the view and the architecture rather than the sport itself. The city panorama, the Nordkette backdrop, and the Zaha Hadid structure are the draw even for people who have never watched a ski jump.

Further reading: the Tirol Panorama and its Bergisel battle painting, Innsbruck’s Olympic history across 1964 and 1976, the Four Hills Tournament at the Bergisel, the Nordkette cable car guide, and two short reads worth the five minutes: two Olympics, one small city and Zaha Hadid’s Innsbruck double.