Austria - Salzberg, bucket list drive, liar liar pants on fire

Typical Austrian scene

Salzberg didn’t look much from the riverside – a glacial green fast flowing river, but once into the actual city we saw beautifully restored buildings, often painted with murals or trompe d’oeil motifs that give the impression of carvings on the outside of the building. There was a huge marble fountain in the middle of main square overlooked by the large slab-like castle on the top of the hill. Spinning off from the main square were lots of perfect little lanes and some minor squares. Horses seemed to be the theme of Salzberg, the big fountain featured horses strangely squirting water from their noses. There were pairs of small horses pulling carriages for tourists, and horses as motifs and statues.

Salzberg

Ice caves, that sounded interesting. I have been to alot of caves but not an ice cave. The caves were near the town of Werfen, famous as a setting in the Sound of Music. We caught a shuttle to the cave ticket office and thus relieved of Euros we trekked uphill in the clouds to the cable car where we were whisked further upwards, then another trek to the cave entrance. There we waited quite a long time cooling down rapidly, the moisture of our expelled breaths condensing in the cold air.

Eventually the English tour set off, the group was handed out little (Davy?) lamps that burned with a naked flame. I was given one to hold – it was quite heavy and we were warned about the dangers of the flame. A heavy door blocked the cave entrance. The difference in air temperature between the cave and the outside caused a serious draft when the door was opened, and the little lamps had to be re-lit. After a while the going got a bit difficult holding onto both the lamp and the freezing steel hand-rail so I gave the lamp to Stuart, all the while feeling a bit nervous about safety of my synthetic trousers and shell of my down jacket. There were some natural ice formations growing in the cave and a lot of stairs to keep your eye on while moving through the tour.

Castle in Werfen,
seen on way up to ice cave - has been used in various movies

It wasn’t too long before it happened – only it wasn’t me. Flames were licking from Stuart's quick-dry trekking pants, he frantically extinguished the blaze with his spare hand. His fingers were burned and the trousers bore a congealed molten nylon mess down one side.

The guide was oblivious to the little drama being played out within his group of charges, however he singled Stuart out twice to ask him if he was ok. Must have been the white beard and the request for pensioner discount. Stuart soothed his burn on the freezing hand rails and had to rip open his melted pocket to get to our return tickets.

We had an unmemorable day of continuous rain before ending up by chance (aka the Aire Bible)  in Maria Alm where we navigated our way to an aire on a farm. Fabulous outlook but we had a stinky neighbour – a billy goat. I flicked water at him in an attempt to get him to sit by another motorhome. We enjoyed wandering around the music festival at Maria Alm, the participants and the audience dressed in national costume for the occasion.

View from aire at Maria Alm

Maria Alm street scene

A couple of days later we said goodbye to the stinky billy goat and set off under a blue cloudless sky for our trip over Gross Glockner pass.  

The road is a ‘must-do’ for motoring enthusiasts of all types, 48km long with lots of everything – mountains, hairpin bends, sweeping views, glacial valleys, marmots, choughs (black alpine birds) and did I mention vehicles? There were swarms of lycra clad cyclists, packs of motorcycles, buses, cars, scooters, a few motorhomes and it was the day for the vintage tractor club outing. Yes, chugging along the well formed road was a collection of ancient small frog-green tractors, one towing a tank and another with hay bales. The road is a magnet for vintage car, classic car, motorcyle outings and as we were blessed with a warm, clear, blue sky day. The tractors would have had a good day out. All this loveliness doesn't come cheaply and we had to pay $NZ55 for a days driving.

Parking at the highest parking lot near Kaiser Franz Josef glacier was at a premium and we had to wait in a holding pen until sufficient space was available. Once in the high parking lot we were ushered into a bus park and young man pointed out the free shuttle bus that took us all of 500m uphill (we must look very infirm, or too much NZ sun has taken its toll).
There was a multi-storey parking building at the top of the road - something I don't think we will ever see happening alongside the NZ Franz Josef glacier. Done in reasonable taste however.

Switchbacks, Chausson is the white box
photo credit: Stuart

Marmot

Kaiser Franz Josef Glacier

At the end of the day, after admiring the views of the glacier, glacial valleys, high mountain peaks, lakes, marmots .... we had done our dash and we re-traced our route back to the entrance. Much as some wild camping looked tempting, they have your number (XC16ACH)!

Chausson retained a hot brake smell even with using the gears to control descents, for quite a while. How the cyclists managed I don’t know.

I said a silent goodbye to the Frau at the campground where we had stayed for 3 (mostly) wet days. Admittance to her reception area was through a large maroon door, entry electronically controlled.

You had to push VERY hard to get in, and each time except the last, I managed to bungle the operation and Frau was not happy at getting off her seat to pull the door open. She would exclaim in voluble German how useless I was.

It was unfortunate that I had to call Frau and tell her that (history repeating) ‘Miele wachen machine kaput’. She grabbed a handful of over-priced tokens and dawdled after me, the candy floss hair nodding at each step. Frau opened the machine door then slammed it shut, inserting one of her tokens to get a result. ‘There, it is all in the slamming’ I think she said. 

It had only been a half hour previous that we had arrived and she leaned out the window and muttered ‘Grossen Wohnmobile’ before calling her son to sort me out. (On a motorhome scale we trend toward the smaller end and I hadn’t thought of us being ‘Grosen’). Frau also refused to take plastic and insisted I return to pay in ‘kas’ at the prescribed time – written down for me on a slip of paper and unlined. Stuart wasn’t having a bar of dealing with her, booking-in is a pink job and toilet emptying is a blue job.

We had managed however a good cycle trip to the nearby lake and it had been heaving with people – a lot of them from the Arab states. The wet weather keeping them off the mountain trails.

Next in our sights is another lake, Innsbruck and then tentative steps towards the Dolomites in Italy.