It turned out ok in the end

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I arrived in Salzburg just after midday. One of the biggest tourist things to do here is visit the ice caves. The BusAbout guide was selling tickets for a tour of the ice caves on board the bus. The price was a little steep, so I wasn't sure if I'd go. After getting talking with Sarah, who was sitting behind me on the bus, I decided to give the tour a miss and try to 'wing it' to the caves with her. She had done some research on how to get there and it worked out about 20 AUD cheaper, so that sounded much better.

After checking into Yoho International Youth Hostel we caught the train out to Werfen. Well, that was the plan! Once the train pulled into Werfen we couldn't get the train door open...so we ended up going through to the next stop 15 mins later! Meanwhile, a policemen told us that the train door we tried wasn't working. Great! By the time we caught a train back to Werfen it was about 4pm and we were starting to worry whether we would have enough time to make it to the ice caves.

Stepping off the train at Werfen (the doors opened this time!), the area seemed deserted for a tourist attraction. I asked a station guard how to get to the ice caves. He said that we were probably too late to see the ice caves. 'Probably' didn't really help us. We'd come all this way and paid for the train fare so we needed to at least find out for sure. In search of a bus stop for the ice caves, we crossed a highway towards the town centre, where we met an English-speaking couple. They told us that the buses to the ice caves ran from the other side of the highway, back where we had just walked from but weren't sure if they were still running. They suggested we check out a fortress that they had just seen if we couldn't go up to the ice caves. The fortress the couple had mentioned was unmissable. The moment I stepped off the train I had seen it, and wondered what it was. So at least this gave us a back up plan.

Upon crossing the highway back towards the train station sure enough we found an inconspicuous sign that read 'Bus to the Ice Caves'. However it really didn't seem like a bus stop at all. And in fact, the sign pointed into a river! We decided to wait at the bus stop anyway for a while and then if no bus came head up to the fortress instead.

Half an hour later, and still no bus, so we set off in the wind and misty rain to the fortress. It took about half an hour to make the steep trek up to the fortress. Some parts were so steep that even though I was taking steps it felt like I was walking on the spot! At least I didn't notice the cold so much with all the body heat I was producing.

Sarah and I took a guided tour through the fortress grounds which lasted about an hour. The guides spoke in German. Luckily they provided us with an English audio guide otherwise we wouldn't have understood a thing! Good thing we had one each too, since the batteries in mine died half-way through! There were lots of old weapons and torture apparatuses on display, which reminded me of Al's Medi-evil Party at the Pink Cow in Japan. The best part of the tour was the views of the mountains opposite the fortress. (The view from the old toilets straight down into the rampaging river below was also impressive!). And as much as it would have been nice to have blue skies I think the cold, misty weather added to the whole medi-evil experience.

So in the end, the afternoon didn't turn out too bad. We didn't see what we came to see but at least we got to see an awesome fortress.

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