June 14 - Werfen

Today, we visited the Ice Cave near Werfen, about an hour south of Salzburg.

We have a rental car for the next few days. We drove out to Werfen, this beautiful fairytale town with a fortress high on the hill above it.

For our trip to the Ice Cave, we first had to drive up a steep mountain road to the car park. Next, we hiked uphill for about 20 minutes to the base of a cable car, which took us up 2,000 feet. Then we walked up another 20 minutes through a tunnel and to the base of the ice cave. The walk up was a lot, but there were beautiful views along the way of the town, the river, and the fortress.

Once there, we walked 1 kilometer into the ice cave! We were led in groups of 30 (we were in front, so we were closest to our guide). It was 0 degrees Celsius inside. Every fourth person carried an open-flame lantern, and our guide also lit magnesium strips occasionally to light up the different ice formations we saw along the way.

The ice cave involved 1,400 steps—700 up and 700 down. The ice inside was thick, layered, and super cool to see! At the farthest point in the cave was the urn of Alexander Van Mork, who first explored it. He died in World War I at the age of 27 and had expressed his desire to be interred here.

We made it back to our car and into the town of Werfen as a big rainstorm moved through. We had lunch in town at a delicious Italian restaurant. (Hey—it was really hard to find an open restaurant at 3:00 PM!)

Then we drove to the top of the Sound of Music trail—we were so grateful that you could drive to the top, as the rain was not letting up. It is here that Maria and the children have a picnic in the mountains, with the Werfen fortress in the background, just before Maria teaches them Do-Re-Mi. We took some wet, rainy pictures (filming of this scene was delayed three days because of rain, so we were in good company!).

On our way back to town, we stopped at Europark, a mall with a grocery store and an IKEA. We got some food to eat for dinner at our hotel and some treats at IKEA.

Remember, more pics located here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QopbhihhB6mcbwSh6