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Published: September 5th 2007
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The Austrian Mountains
Complete change of scenery, considering we were in Venice yesterday... :) We are now in Austria, Salzburg to be precise. We left Venice, Italy and headed straight for the border. We stuck to the motorway so me managed to cross the border that night. We spent a day at Werfen at the ice caves, before spending 3 nights in Salzburg, while the car got some attention. The scenery is quite amazing in Austria with massive mountains all around. The only thing that's letting it down is the weather, which so far has mostly been rainy (and we're not even back in the UK yet).
The ice caves at Werfen were very interesting. It's again something new that we have never seen before. The cave system itself goes for about 42kms but you only get to see the first km or so (which is good considering your on foot). It's located high up in a mountain and takes a while just to get to the entrance of the cave (20min drive from town, 20min walk to the cable car, quick cable car up a few 100m and another 20min walk to the cave). It's then 1400 steps for the round trip guided tour of the caves that lasted 70mins. The first thing
Werfen Ice Caves...
I'm sure superman lives in here somewhere... that hits you when you go in is the cold (it's 0 deg in there after all) breeze (I'll talk about that later). The formations were mostly like frozen rivers but some formations where in shapes that were nicknamed things, the Polar Bear, the Elephant, etc, for their small resemblance. In some sections it was also amazing to see the layers ice, like rings in a tree showing the age of some flows (some deep down are aged over 1000 years old). It was also interesting to know that the cave is 'sealed' with a door at the entrance. This is to keep in as much cool air as they could during the warmer months, then opening it in winter to let cool air again. The difference in air temp causes gusty winds at the doorway when it's opened (which you have to walk through to get in). We were told it reaches speeds in excess of 100km/h when the difference is the greatest.
From Werfen we headed to Salzburg however just outside our suspension got real bad. We called the AA (NRMA equivalent) and got towed to a mechanic. We were then advised that it was going to
Schnitzel and Beer...
Beats pizza and pasta anytime... take 3 days to fix (as parts were required). So we went into town and grabbed some Austrian takeaway (traditional hot dogs) and stayed in the Van at the mechanics.
The next day we found an internet cafe and booked some accommodation and found a hostel that was more than we wanted to pay but had available rooms. We spent most of the day getting our stuff together and doing washing (both our clothes and us). We also found out that Salsburg is the home town of the movie the Sound Of Music which we watched at our hostel that night (on every night). We also decided to do a Sound Of Music walking tour the following day.
The next day was our 12 year anniversary (since going out together) and also fathers day back in Aus, so we spent the morning at an internet cafe on the internet phone to our dads and family. The weather in the afternoon wasn't the best so we did our own little walking tour and found many sights from the movie anyway (the famous musical steps and the horse fountain, etc). We also stumbled across a Sound Of Music bike tour
Sound of Music Bike Tour
Holly beside the river near the end of our tour. It was good to get out of the city and see some country side... that we figured we'll do tomorrow. We ended up exploring both the 'old town' and the 'new town' looking at all the shops (they have a lot of xmas decoration shops) and found a nice and traditional looking Austrian place for our anniversary dinner. We went back to the hostel for a quick power nap before heading back to the restaurant. We both had schnitzel, holly had a turkey and I had pork one. Our choice of restaurant paid off as the food was very tasty and the beer went great to wash it down. We even had room for apple strudel and chocolate cake, yummo!!
Our last day in Salzburg was spent on the Sound of Music bike tour that we looked at yesterday. We didn't really know what to expect but it turned out to be really good. Our guide was actually from Scotland but it made sense in the end as she explained to us that most Austrians and German's don't really like the movie. They think of it more as Hollywood trash in which they mixed up all the sights, creating a fictional Salzburg and surrounding mountains (for example the opening scene is shot in
Hohenwerfen Castle, Werfen
Makes you want a castle to call your own... Found out later in Salzburg that it was also in the Sound of Music movie... Werfen, not Salzburg at all). The tour took us past quite a lot of sights from the movie and our guide was quite knowledgeable about the sights and their use in the movie. Perhaps the more interesting aspect of the tour was the 'real' maria and Von Trappe story and how they actual sang because they were broke.
We head off for the Cech Rep tonight after picking up our Van from the mechanics. If all goes well we should cross the border tomorrow.
Cheers,
Lew and Holly
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