The Hills are Alive

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Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. I decided to catch the afternoon train from Ljubljana to Salzburg last Friday. However, the train was more than one hour late, so this afternoon train became an evening train. While I was waiting for this train, I was stung by a wasp on the top of my ring finger. I was eating an apple at the time. The sting was quite painful at the time, but the pain changed to a discomfort, and by the evening almost all traces of the sting were gone. We finally got onto the train, and it moved slowly, and stopped a few times. A couple of hours later, we crossed the border into Austria and pulled into the town of Villach. The conductor said that the train is stopping here, and that to continue you will have to catch the next train onto Salzburg, which doesn't leave for nearly two hours. If I did catch that train it would put me into Salzburg late at night and with no accommodation. I walked away from my stamped and dated incomplete train ticket and walked into a hotel in the town of Villach, southern Austria. I showered, washed some clothes in the sink, the hobo's wash, and went out for dinner. By the time I returned to the room, it was 9 o'clock at night and I was tired. Taking that late train into Salzburg might have been risky because it is a very busy town with many tourists. I did not feel like wandering around at night with my knapsack looking for a place to sleep. My night in Villach was quite a useful night because I got to finish watching the World Track and Field Championships, and catch up on some needed laundry. I don't mind these unexpected detours on my travels, they break up the routine and give me a story to tell. I could have done without the wasp sting though.

The next day I got to Salzburg no problem. The train was very full, I had a seat but there were a few who did not and had to stand between the carriages. It was raining when we arrived in Salzburg. I walked to the Youth Hotel, a great hostel with all the amenities you could ask for: laundry (which I didn't use), internet, breakfast, dinner available, bar, and television room which plays The Sound of Music twice daily. I walked into town in the rain, which I didn't mind because it was the first cool weather and rain I had experienced for weeks. Salzburg is a wonderful town, the Old Town is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the buildings all date from the early 17th Century. One of them is the birthplace of Mozart. I really enjoyed looking at the shop signs, wrought iron signs which stick out from the building with a little model / picture to indicate what is being sold. In the olden days this was to help people find their shop when they couldn't read. Now it is a fun way to show what is being sold: Zara, MacDonald's, music shop, fish shop, hat shop etc. Salzburg is a nice town to wander without a map just using the castle fortress as your guide to help you navigate.

The next day I took a tour to the Ice Cave, about one hour south by coach from Salzburg. They picked us up at the hostel, and drove the 12 of us to the cave. The guide asked us lots of questions and told us lots of information about the cave as we drove into the mountains. The entire cave system is over 20 km long but we only explored the first 1 km. The cave is actually limestone but being so cold and open at both ends is fills with water that freezes. The bus dropped us off at the bottom of the mountain and then we took a fast cable car up to the entrance of the cave. This was an elevation gain of at least 700 m. There are cable cars all over the Alps. From the entrance of the cave we were lead by a local guide who explained the details of the cave, first in English and then in German. He leads at least 50 people up into the cave system. No photos allowed inside because this keeps the groups moving. There could be as many as four or five different groups of 50 people each in the cave at any one time all either climbing stairs or descending so they need to keep us moving. They gave a few of us open flame carbide lamps to help light the way, I was one of these carriers. As you enter the cave there is a huge rush of air which takes your breath away and knocks out the open flame, so it has to be re-lit. They should just give us the lamps inside. Inside there were 700 steps to climb. But a fascinating ascent as we walked past ice stalagmites, some of which look like animals. There was a section which showed yearly layers of ice, and over 1000 layers can be counted. This was a great day as it was a big change from my trip to get out into the country and experience nature at it's grandest - that is the largest ice cave in the world.

The next day, Monday, was my Sound of Music Day. I started the morning by watching the Sound of Music. A good thing too because I didn't really know the details of the film, as it had been many years since I had last seen it. Then in the afternoon the bus came to pick us up from the hostel and we began the Sound of Music Tour. There were about 60 of us in total on this tour. It was quite fun, kitsch, camp and corny but it is what I expected. Too many people in one place for me though, it takes a while for a full bus to load and unload and we did this several times through the afternoon. Our guide was very entertaining, she sang songs from the musical and tried to get us to sing too, she weaved lots of humour and jokes into her narration. She told us of the real Von Trapp family. The Captain and Maria really did marry but in 1927 many years before the marriage in the movie, and the Von Trapp family escaped by train to Italy rather than over the hills to Switzerland. They took us to the locations used for the film, the house used was actually two different houses, one for the front and another for the rear, the gazebo has been moved but still we can visit it, and we went into the country into the lake district to visit the church used for the wedding scene, and to see the lakes filmed in the opening scene where Maria sings The Hills are Alive. That actual hill used is too far from Salzburg to visit on this afternoon tour. The movie isn't well know in Germany or Austria because they had their own film and sequel made in the 1950's. Hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists come to Salzburg each year simply because The Sound of Music was filmed there.

Tuesday I wandered the old town and stumbled upon the catherdral 10 minutes before a noon time organ concert. So I went in and listen to some Baroque organ music inside a Baroque Church. I like having the time and flexibility to do these impetuous things. In the afternoon I took the funicular up to the Castle Fortress of Salzburg. Parts of the castle date from the 15th Century. This dominates the skyline and can be seen from everywhere, except while in the old town hidden between the old 16 century 4 floor buildings. I had dinner up on the hill and waited for the lights to go on and the sun to set. It is a great view from up there, although the clouds did roll in a bit that evening. But that is to be expected this close to the mountains.

Wednesday morning I took the train to Innsbruck, and we quickly arrived because the train was fast and we didn't make any intermediate stops. I arrived and found a place to stay before noon, quite convenient. I am staying in the old town in an old building. It is a hostel and bed and breakfast, above and owned by a cake shop. The breakfast was great this morning. That first afternoon I took the bus to the tiny town of Igles just south of Innsbruck and then took the cable car to the top of the south mountain and looked north onto Innsbruck and the Alps. I walked for a couple of hours in the green meadows near the summit of this mountain taking many photographs. There were a few people up here too, but not so many. I walked back to the summit restaurant and had the best apple strudle. I walked to the cable car to descend but by then a lightning storm had rolled in so we had to wait while this blew through. We had to wait an hour. It wasn't raining up on the mountain but you could tell it was raining heavily in Innsbruck and the valley to the west. The storm moved on and we started down the mountain in the cable car. We had to change cars half way, as is normal procedure, but we had to wait for another few minutes on the platform of a cable car pylon some height above the ground. Eventually we got down the mountain, but it was the last cable car of the day. On the way down I saw a doe, a deer, a female deer.

The next day, I ascended the mountain to the north of Innsbruck by cable car, this time even higher. The final altitude is over 2200 m. As I walked about up and down at this height I could feel myself breathing more heavily. But the views were fabulous looking north with the sun at my back, mountain peaks, glacially sculpted landscapes: bowls, ridges, and a few horns. I walked about a bit and there were many more people up at this peak than the mountain I summited yesterday. The cable car could fit up to 90 people, jam packed into this space pulled up by a single cable. On this side we were well above the tree line, the only vegetation was the grasses and few wild flowers, but I didn't see any edelweiss, edelweiss. The mountains do go on and on into the far distance, peak after peak. No snow, but in the winter the view must be grand. There were idle tow ropes and ski lifts, only the cable cars are in operation in the summer for the hikers. Some people like me were just ascending and descending with little time at the top simply for the view, but other intrepid hikers take the cable car up and walk down, others set off to the top for multi-day hikes. I'll leave them to Climb Every Mountain.

The evening after I wrote this entry, I watched a most fascinating medieval show in the old town of Innsbruck. I didn't get all the translation, but it was some sort of re-enactment of a celebration given in the honour of King Maximillain in 1503. There were about 100 performers all in medieval costume. Royalty sat at the table eating and looking regal while the entertainers did their show for the royals and for us. There were jugglers, fire dancers, fire jugglers, a 5 piece band playing on period instruments, two hurdy gurdy's, pipes and a mandolin. There was even a fight between two knights in full armour. This of course was all entertainment and all for show. But because I don't understand German and I didn't get all the translation, I don't know if this is something they do often in Innsbruck, or only once a year; whether it is because it is an anniversary, or because it is a sunny day. But the entire show lasted about one hour. A stage was put up during the day in front of one of the old buildings. The performers marched in to a drummer, the king and his royal family were introduced, and then the entertainment. All while this is going on a joker pranced around getting the audience to clap, and he got in the way of the performers to get a good laugh. What a great way to end a great day in Innsbruck. The crowd had to stand and to photograph I had to hold the camera above my head. This show was so unexpected, and I stumbled upon it only because I was eating and sleeping in the old town. All this activity in the last week has been energizing. I have been gone 9 weeks going on 10 weeks. It is time to say goodbye, so long, auf weidersehen, farewell.

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Photos

Von Trapp house
Used in the film as the rear of the house.