I will have to keep this post brief, as I need to get to bed and am unable to both have my computer plugged into an outlet and use the WiFi here at the same time.
My trip to Werfen included the second-best train ride that I have ever had, better than any except for the one from Ljubljana to Salzburg, which was not that much better. We passed hills carpeted in foliage, rivers, waterfalls (including one that came out of a hole in the side of a cliff), and mountains shrouded in mist. The mountains were not more than a few hundred yards from the train tracks, rising up to the left and right like redwoods in that national park north of San Francisco. Craggy cliffs jutted out in areas where trees could not grow, and mountain peaks dusted with snow sometimes showed through the clouds, as though one were looking through a window at them.
The ice caves themselves were fantastically interesting; I do not know how to describe them beyond saying that they were caves that were full of ice. It turns out that the wind cools down the interior of the caves in the winter, which is what turns precipitation that is drawn in their into ice. Their structure has changed, naturally, over the past several decades, partly because of changes in wind patterns (it sounded like). While the caves themselves extend for 42 kilometers, only the kilometer-and-a-bit that we were shown on the guided tour today contain ice, as the wind cannot reach the other parts of the cave, as a result of which they are not cold enough for ice to form in them. The tour through the caves was well-planned and taught one everything that one would want to know about them.
The latter part of my day was a little more trying than the morning. I did not finish seeing the ice caves until something like 2:50 (i.e., I did not get back down to the train station until then.) and did not get back to Salzburg until roughly 4:00. This was much later than I had expected to return, as I thought that it would only take a few hours in total to see the ice caves. I rushed through Salzburg looking for a place to get some lunch and take some money out of the ATM, then I collected my baggage from the hostel, hurried over to train station, and managed to catch the last train to Passau that was on my schedule (not the last one of the day; rather, the last one for which I knew the exact connections to take). I got to Passau shortly after 7:00 and made it to the hostel roughly an hour later.
The most exciting component of my day beyond taking the train to Werfen and seeing the ice caves was my interactions with people today. I met a fascinating woman from Australia on my way to the ice caves and spent the whole of my excursion there with her, and when I got in to Passau, a whole group of people helped me to find my hostel. First, a young woman from Turkey personally took me to the bus station. Since German was our only common language, we had a fairly broken conversation in which she explained that she had left Turkey because of the political problems there and could not go anywhere except to Germany because of Visa restrictions. Once I reached the bus station, a pair of very beautiful young German women told me which bus to take to get to the hostel and which stop to get off at; since they were getting off at the same stop, they got off with me and pointed me in the direction of my hostel. I have continued to be overwhelmed by the goodness of German and Austrian people (and Australians, now) and have since met a young man who is partway through a bike trip from Venice to Denmark, and who explained some cultural differences between different parts of Germany to me.
I suppose that I would have a lot more to say if I had more time to write, but, alas, I need to shower and go to bed. My skin has gotten a lot worse today, probably because of my having worn a fleece jacket in the ice caves, and needs attention. My final point of the day is that I have fallen in love with Austria even more than I had done with Germany; I plan to come back to Salzburg next year for three days to see more of the nearby attractions, of which I only found out today, and hope to come here for the winter markets in four or five years. If I had planned things appropriately, I would have spent longer in Salzburg to begin with and would have planned a whole separate day just to get to Passau and get oriented, but, alas, I crammed too much sightseeing into too small an amount of time. Passau itself has a lot of wonderful sights, of which I got a good view from a lookout point near the hostel (and on the bus ride over). I forgot to mention that I saw (separately) a deer and a fawn today and that there was a view of the castle and the surrounding valleys from the mouth of the cave in Werfen. I look forward to my next post!
Smoking is good for you. Who would have guessed?
My trip to Werfen included the second-best train ride that I have ever had, better than any except for the one from Ljubljana to Salzburg, which was not that much better. We passed hills carpeted in foliage, rivers, waterfalls (including one that came out of a hole in the side of a cliff), and mountains shrouded in mist. The mountains were not more than a few hundred yards from the train tracks, rising up to the left and right like redwoods in that national park north of San Francisco. Craggy cliffs jutted out in areas where trees could not grow, and mountain peaks dusted with snow sometimes showed through the clouds, as though one were looking through a window at them.
The ice caves themselves were fantastically interesting; I do not know how to describe them beyond saying that they were caves that were full of ice. It turns out that the wind cools down the interior of the caves in the winter, which is what turns precipitation that is drawn in their into ice. Their structure has changed, naturally, over the past several decades, partly because of changes in wind patterns (it sounded like). While the caves themselves extend for 42 kilometers, only the kilometer-and-a-bit that we were shown on the guided tour today contain ice, as the wind cannot reach the other parts of the cave, as a result of which they are not cold enough for ice to form in them. The tour through the caves was well-planned and taught one everything that one would want to know about them.
The latter part of my day was a little more trying than the morning. I did not finish seeing the ice caves until something like 2:50 (i.e., I did not get back down to the train station until then.) and did not get back to Salzburg until roughly 4:00. This was much later than I had expected to return, as I thought that it would only take a few hours in total to see the ice caves. I rushed through Salzburg looking for a place to get some lunch and take some money out of the ATM, then I collected my baggage from the hostel, hurried over to train station, and managed to catch the last train to Passau that was on my schedule (not the last one of the day; rather, the last one for which I knew the exact connections to take). I got to Passau shortly after 7:00 and made it to the hostel roughly an hour later.
The most exciting component of my day beyond taking the train to Werfen and seeing the ice caves was my interactions with people today. I met a fascinating woman from Australia on my way to the ice caves and spent the whole of my excursion there with her, and when I got in to Passau, a whole group of people helped me to find my hostel. First, a young woman from Turkey personally took me to the bus station. Since German was our only common language, we had a fairly broken conversation in which she explained that she had left Turkey because of the political problems there and could not go anywhere except to Germany because of Visa restrictions. Once I reached the bus station, a pair of very beautiful young German women told me which bus to take to get to the hostel and which stop to get off at; since they were getting off at the same stop, they got off with me and pointed me in the direction of my hostel. I have continued to be overwhelmed by the goodness of German and Austrian people (and Australians, now) and have since met a young man who is partway through a bike trip from Venice to Denmark, and who explained some cultural differences between different parts of Germany to me.
I suppose that I would have a lot more to say if I had more time to write, but, alas, I need to shower and go to bed. My skin has gotten a lot worse today, probably because of my having worn a fleece jacket in the ice caves, and needs attention. My final point of the day is that I have fallen in love with Austria even more than I had done with Germany; I plan to come back to Salzburg next year for three days to see more of the nearby attractions, of which I only found out today, and hope to come here for the winter markets in four or five years. If I had planned things appropriately, I would have spent longer in Salzburg to begin with and would have planned a whole separate day just to get to Passau and get oriented, but, alas, I crammed too much sightseeing into too small an amount of time. Passau itself has a lot of wonderful sights, of which I got a good view from a lookout point near the hostel (and on the bus ride over). I forgot to mention that I saw (separately) a deer and a fawn today and that there was a view of the castle and the surrounding valleys from the mouth of the cave in Werfen. I look forward to my next post!
Smoking is good for you. Who would have guessed?
This is part of Passau from up above.
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