Oh Austria, how beautiful you were! I personally loved our time in this country. Amongst mountains, rivers, castles, Mozart, and all things Sound of Music – what could you not love?! We took a slower pace in Salzburg because, well we could. Our first day we spent walking around the old town. We learned about the history of the city from Rick Steves’ city walk. Walked through plazas, toured the Mozart museum (located in the house he lived in), and went through Mirabell gardens.
Our second day we took a train a little bit outside of Salzburg to the quaint Werfen. Werfen is a village cradled between mountains and alongside a flowing river. As soon as we got off the train Ryan and I were like little bobble heads, spinning around trying to take it all in. The best part was as we were walking across a little bridge, we looked up and there was the castle! The very castle on all the lists of top castles in Europe! And boy did it not disappoint. It was so foreboding sitting on top of a hill overlooking the village and river. We started our small trek to the castle, as we had gotten tickets to tour hohenwerfen fortress. The city was so quiet! Barely anyone was out and about. We didn’t even see any tourists walking around – so refreshing!
It was so cool visiting the castle’s inside. But it definitely is a much better experience seeing it from afar. Which was the entire purpose of its creation – to warn off others and to hopefully intimidate them so that they wouldn’t attack the city. I enjoyed learning about the life inside the walls. And the view of the city from the bell tower was breathtaking.
Up next in Werfen was Eisriesenwelt – the largest ice cave in the world! It was quite a hike up the mountain, even with the cable car lift – but it was SO worth it. Only open in summertime, Eisriesenwelt is a must see if you are heading to this part of Austria. Even with it being 85 degrees outside, it was about 30 degrees inside the cave. We sweated hiking up the mountain, and then our sweat promptly froze when inside the cave! (Not really, but you can imagine the shock we felt when entering at first). Inside the cave isn’t lit, as when there is light – life can grow. So we toured the cave with a guide and a gas lantern. You aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the cave as a general rule because it usually disrupts the flow of the group and management wants to keep the groups on schedule. However, our guide was super cool and allowed us to take a few sneak shots as they didn’t hurt anything and we were quick! But I’ve heard that’s not a normal thing – so we were super lucky!
Our final day in Salzburg, I geeked out with a Panorama Sound of Music tour. I am a longtime fan of the movie, and even though I knew it would probably be pretty hokey – I was super excited for this. (Ryan wasn’t as into it as I was, but I think he secretly was singing “Do Re Mi” in his head). It was so fun! I had made a friend in our hostel who happened to be going on the tour the same day and time as us! We bonded over our mutual love for Julie Andrews and as fate would have it – our hostel showed the movie the night before our tour! It made it so much more exciting watching Liesel and Rolf sing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” knowing we were going to see the actual gazebo the very next day!
The last stop on our tour was the city Mondsee, where they filmed Maria’s marriage to the Captain. The tour group was given about an hour to walk around the city, go inside the church, eat an apple strudel, and snap a picture by a gorgeous natural lake. Coming back to the city we got a few more pictures of Mirabell gardens, where most of the scenes for the “Do Re Mi” song were filmed. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end our time in Salzburg.
