Salzburg - Castles and Palaces

On our last full day in Salzburg we set out to see two of the most famous places in Salzburg- Schloss Hellbrünn and Hohensalzburg (Fortress Salzburg). Breakfast was the standard for the hostel- German bread with cheese and cold meats, jam and juice. I decided on the first day I wasn't a fan of the German bread, but we had a few of the chocolate croissants leftover from Florence so I had those with cheese, ham and juice.

Salzburg's bus system is similar to Italy's in that you can buy tickets from tobacconists, newsstands etc. However unlike in Italy, you can still buy tickets on the bus, it's just more expensive. Unfortunately we generally got stuck buying tickets on the bus because there was nowhere near our hostel that sold them. So after the 332 steps down the cliff (we only paid for the elevator on the days we were carrying our packs), we jumped on a bus out to Schloss Hellbrünn (Hellbrünn Palace). The palace itself is not terribly impressive (it's pretty, but not in great condition and not very big), but the real attraction at Hellbrünn are the trick fountains. The palace and fountains were built around 500 years ago by the prince archbishop of Salzburg as a day residence, so there are no bedrooms there. The extensive grounds include a network of fountains, including secret hidden fountains perfectly placed for the archbishop to play pranks on his friends. Our guide clearly loves his job, demonstrating the trick fountains both when we were expecting it and when we weren't! Michelle and I figured out straight away though to look for the dry patches on the ground where the fountains obviously don't reach, and stand there!

We had lunch back in the old town where we went on a hunt for 'Salzburgers' that we saw advertised on our first day. It didn't take too long to find the same food stand, and it was worth the search- one of the best burgers I've ever had! After lunch we took the funicular up the hill to Hohensalzburg, the castle you can see from nearly anywhere in Salzburg. It was interesting not just in itself, but also because it gave a really good history of the city too, which was first mentioned as a settlement in the 900s, and the fortress was built not long after that!

We ended up not being able to spend quite as much time up there as we would have liked because it closed. We had to do laundry anyway, so went back to the hostel to get our washing and went on a hunt for a laundromat. We had a map and knew specifically where we were going, but the problem came after we put the washing on and wanted to find dinner. We were well out of the tourist area and it was past 9pm, so many places were closed. We walked up and down the street, avoiding the pizza place because we overdosed on pizza in Italy, only to be told several times that kitchens had already closed. So back to the pizza place it was. It actually turned out to be pretty good pizza, and the Indian owner was friendly and chatted to us while the pizza cooked.

We returned, with our pizza, to the laundromat fifteen minutes before closing only to discover our clothes had not been dried in the dual washer-drier which was also supposed to dry them. Then André realised he had only put it on a wash cycle, not wash and dry. This was possibly fortunate as we realized there were some things in the wash that shouldn't be put in a drier. So we had to pull all the washing out, throw it into a drier, and put the drier on the hottest and fastest cycle possible. For future reference: 90 degrees for ten minutes dries everything. Even jeans. It was finished by 10, at which point the machines automatically turn off, so we were able to relax and eat our dinner. Then when we finally got back to the hostel near 11 we realised Michelle still had to pack for her 8:30 flight the next morning. Oh well.

Ice Caves

We chose our second day in Salzburg to take a day trip to visit the Eisriesenwelt ice caves. The caves are near Werfen, a little town about 45 minutes' train ride from Salzburg. So we got a bus to the train station in Salzburg and hopped on a train to Werfen. From the train station we walked about ten minutes to the car park where the shuttle bus to the caves picks you up. The bus wasn't too expensive, 6 euros each for the return trip.

But the trip doesn't end at the end of the bus ride. It drops you at the visitor centre where you buy your tickets, and from there, it's a 15 to 20 minute walk, uphill, to the bottom of the cable car. If you're super keen you can skip the cable car and hike up, but it's your choice between a three minute cable car ride or an extra two to three hours of walking. Literally. I know what I'd choose. Because then, at the top of the cable car, you have another 10 to 15 minute walk. Still uphill. We stopped at the top of the cable car for lunch (Austrian Mac and cheese for André and toasted sandwiches with side salads for me and Michelle) before continuing up to the caves.

They warn you that it's zero degrees inside the caves regardless of the outside temperature, so we came prepared. We emptied out my backpack (easy when you have packing cubes!) and André carried it for the day with our jackets, scarves, beanies and gloves in it. At the entrance to the cave we put the extra layers on except for the gloves. Disappointingly we discovered the tours were only in German with a printed English translation on a piece of paper. This can be difficult to read when there is no electrical lighting in the caves, only the gas- yes, gas- lanterns they gave us to carry. What is this, the 1800s? Do they not have head lamps or at least battery operated hand held torches? Nothing on the website suggests you should bring your own torches either.

You are also not allowed to take photos in the caves. According to the website it's so that guides don't get 'blinded by flashes' (which wouldn't be necessary if the place was lit better) and so nobody slows the tour down because tours leave 'every six minutes' - they don't, they leave every half hour. So by ten minutes into the tour, we were not very impressed- no electric lighting so we couldn't even appreciate the ice formations properly (could just see them via our lanterns and the magnesium flares the guide lit), hand-held gas lanterns, no English speaking guide and no photos. However a bit further into the caves the pace slowed a bit and the guide climbed in behind many ice formations to light longer-lasting flares. Permanent electrical lights still would have been more effective, but we were able to see things better. André also managed to get some video on his phone but got told off about half way through the tour! I started reading the translation but was also carrying a lantern so passed the translation to Michelle to read. So I basically went through it without any commentary, but it was still interesting and very different to anything I've seen before. Everything its covered in ice. In many places you can see the rock through the ice- it's so clear it's like looking through water. There are enormous frozen waterfalls, some 'pouring' down through holes in the ceiling to form ice columns, others 'flowing' down through the cave. Some tunnels were so low even I had to duck my head. And because it's ice and re-forms every year, nobody cares much if you touch it either (although there are large long-lasting formations that do break over time). We went about a kilometre into the cave network, which extends a further 41km into the mountain.

If you have the opportunity to see other ice caves that are better set up it probably isn't worth the cost and effort to get to Eisriesenwelt, but as we'll probably never have the opportunity to see something similar again, it still ended up being a good experience.

Salzburg

We got into Salzburg late afternoon. After a little bit of trouble figuring out buses we visited an Info Centre where a lady there pointed us towards the right bus and explained how to get to our hostel. We got off our bus at the bottom of a cliff, where we got on an elevator to the top of the cliff where our hostel was!

All did not go smoothly straight away though. The girl who was checking us in realised her boss had double-booked our room. We had booked a double room for André and me, and a dorm bed for Michelle. Somehow, they had double booked the only double room in the whole place. The girl was able to rearrange some bed assignments to at least have the three of us in the same room, and also offered us the first night free. With the offer of a free night-and the fact it had such a great view being at the top of a cliff behind the old town- we decided to stay. We didn't want to sit around looking for somewhere else to stay when we had somewhere cheap and interesting to stay anyway.

On our first night we took a bit of a walk around the park on the cliff where our hostel was situated. We found a small food outlet where we bought wurst hotdogs and André had a beer while Michelle and I shared something called an apple spritz. It turned out to be similar to appletiser, but not as sweet. We had other spritzes while in Austria and figured out they were just juices with mineral water. We had a bottled one that evening but often in restaurants they are offered as the juice alone or with mineral water as a spritz.

As we headed back to the hostel for bed we could hear music coming up from the old town below. Someone joked that it was the nuns rocking out, but we discovered the next morning that we had arrived in the middle of a music festival. It was all woodwind and brass bands playing a mixture of traditional music and covers of popular music like Queen. It was right in the middle of the old town, and meant there were lots of food stands set up. Our first day was also a Saturday, which meant there were the normal Saturday markets running. So we spent the morning looking through the markets and shops of the old town where we got an apfel bezel (apple pretzel) big enough for the three of us to share for morning tea, and then stumbled across the music festival while looking for the information centre. We stopped there and got lunch (wurstl, schnitzel, chips, semmel, beer and coke) from one of the stands and ate at one of the dozens of tables they had laid out in front of the stage. Clearly Europe doesn't have the same attitude to sun protection as Australia does- all the tables were spread out in the sun, which was actually a bit of a nice change after London and Paris had been so cold and drizzly and Florence and Venice's weather had been temperamental too. We also noted a lot of people in town still wear traditional dress. Most don't, but enough do that in a crowded shopping street you'll see several people walking around with lederhosen or drindles on, which we found quite amusing.

In the afternoon we went for a walk up behind the old town to see Nonnberg Abbey where scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed, and where the real Maria started her training. We could only walk around it, and didn't really recognise anything from the movie. We just decided we would have to watch the movie again when we get home! In our walk through the old town we had also seen the fountain where they filmed Maria's 'I have confidence' scene. Afterwards we crossed the river and walked along it to see Schloss Mirabell's gardens which Salzburg is famous for. A few other Sound of Music scenes were filmed there including the children and Maria singing 'Doe, a deer'.

We had a proper Austrian meal for dinner that night. André had Berner wurstl, which is a wurstl wrapped in bacon, while Michelle and I both had tirder gröstl, which is chopped beef and pork (we suspected these were beef and pork sausages) with chopped roasted potatoes served with a fried egg on top. Both meals came with a side salad which was served first (something we have found standard in counties with German influence) and was very tasty. It had cold potato in it too, and while that sounds weird with a green salad and I normally don't even like potato salad, it worked well.

Our first day in Salzburg already made it one of our favourite places.