The Sound of Music - Austrian Alps

From Munchen we headed to Austria on the train. We were organized and knew we had to be up for an early breakfast to get our train. The benefit of this is we would arrive in St Johann in Tirol before midday. The train turned out to be delayed, but not too bad so our connection was still fine. We are now carrying so much stuff that we nearly didn’t get off the train quick enough, with it almost leaving while we still struggled out the doors with our tent and bed rolls, as well as everything else!
In town we had to find accommodation as we had not pre booked. It is a small place, so no big hostels or hotels, just small private pensions. The information centre was closed, but still helpful, outside was a board listing all the pensions in town and a phone to use to call them free of charge. We didn’t look too hard, in fact we chose the first and only one we called, Pension Edelweisshof. While a little bit more pricey than what we had hoped to pay it was worth it. For an extra 4euro per night it included a 3 course dinner. We had hoped to spend the afternoon doing a short walk somewhere, however the weather had turned and it poured rain for most of the night. Instead we relaxed in the pension, went for a walk around town with an umbrella and thought about heading to the local swimming pool, although never made it. Our dinner was great, homemade pumpkin soup with pumpkin oil on it, chicken pasta and fruit salad.
We were up early for breakfast and then headed back to the tourist information for a guided hike. This started at 9am and was for 3-4 hours. The weather was still not great but cleared slightly as the day went on. From town we walked through a valley and then up into the hills to a waterfall. The whole area is ski fields in winter so it was interesting to see it in summer. On the way back the guide even pointed out a white bear, although Christine wasn’t overly impressed!

After the tour Christine spent some time shopping in town and ended up buying another pair of jeans. With that out of the way we were in the clear to continue being tourists. We took a cable car from town up to the Bergstation Harschbichl (1700m).

From here we had two choices, walk up to the Kitzbuheler Horn (2000m) or walk down, stopping at Stanglalm for Apfel Strudel. You guessed it, it was way too cloudy to go any higher! The guide this morning had recommended two places for their strudel, one being the best in town and the other being the best in the area. The walk was all down, through ski runs and forest, with some nice views of the town and valley below. The strudel was amazing, warm, spicy with brandy sauce, well worth sacrificing a hike up a cold mountain. After strudel we waddled back down along the paths into town.
It was almost 5pm, so we had an hour and a half to kill until dinner. We headed for the local Brauerei (brewery). As far as the brewery went we were a bit unimpressed, it really was just a bar and restaurant. As far as a bar and restaurant goes, we were well impressed! Its on the 5th floor of the building, making it one of the highest places in town (except for the church) and had views in every direction. The beer was good also, very good. There were about 8 on tap, but no sampler plates, so we just had to drink big beers. We had the Dunkel (dark), Augustinus (very good, similar style to Samuel Adams) as well as dark and light Weissbier. On the way home we stopped to pick up some travelers and then sat down to enjoy our dinner which tonight was a salad with deep fried mushrooms, ham steaks and veggies and cake for dessert. Still not done for the day we grabbed our biers and headed into town, where the local band was playing their weekly performance in the main square. It had about 30 instruments and a few singers and amongst more traditional music they played ‘Oh When The Saints Go Marching In’ and a few Joe Cocker numbers.
After an entertaining night we let ourselves sleep in a bit longer the next morning, had our breakfast and headed to the train station. There was no rush today as we didn’t have far to go, Zell am See, still in the alps. Zell am See is on a lake, so we caught the bus from town to the campground where we set up our tent.
The weather was ok, but not great. We walked into town along the lake which took about half an hour. After a coffee break, we headed to the supermarket for our bbq dinner. We then did what we missed out on in St Johann, and went to the swimming pool. It seems in Austria that when you check in at a hotel/campsite they give you a visitors card that gets you free entry to the local pool. This turned out to be quite fun, despite the pool being very busy. There were diving boards so we watched as many people unsuccessfully attempted to dive, and a water slide that timed how long it took top to bottom. Christine managed to be about a second quicker, with a best time of just over 10 seconds.
The campground has a bbq, so we bought a bag of coals and had chicken and veggies on the grill for dinner. We didn’t even need to light it, although we had to wait while someone else did! Luckily, after our dinner, it started to rain and didn’t stop until about lunchtime. It did give us a chance to sleep in and eat breakfast in the tent.
Once the rain had stopped we walked along the lake back into town. From the back of town we took a cable car up to the top of a mountain called Schmittenhohe (2000m). The peak had nice views over the mountains and ski runs and also looked back over the town and lake below. It was cloudy, but we still had a nice view. After a coffee and strudel at the top, for energy, we embarked on our walk back to town. It was a nice walk, all downhill, with bit of a sculpture trail, there were many carved animals along the way. We were in no rush, so the 4hr walk ended up taking a bit longer. Our biggest ‘delay’ was an amazing stop in the back of the town. We were walking along the road and came up to 3 guys (one an older guy with huge beard and wearing traditional lederhosen) sitting out the front of their house having a beer. One of them recognized us from the mountain, he had just been out on his mountain bike. They offered us a beer, which we gladly accepted after our long walk. They took us into their ‘converted garage’ to get this, and we felt that the older guy (Fritz, who didn’t speak English) was keen to show us something. We soon found out what it was, what looked like the garage and tool shed, had actually been converted into a homemade brewery and lumberjack museum. We found out from the younger guy (Fritz’s son, who spoke English), that Fritz and Fritz’s father had both been lumberjacks. Fritz had collected various old saw’s which hung on the walls, one was even a primitive 2000 year old blade. The other collection was beer steins, which hung all around the room and on the roof. There were hundreds of steins from all around the world, we could have sat in there for hours just looking at them all. The next room was like a small tool shed, which had his bar and brewery, which was quite large by home brew standards. After our first beer, which was from one of the bigger local brewery’s, Fritz opened one of his home brew’s, and it was a really nice beer, not even tasting like home brew, if you know what I mean. It was a bit cloudy, very smooth, delicious! The front of the house is covered in grape vines and hops plants which he grows and uses in his brews. Next he showed us the backyard, which was amazing just for the view over the town and lake. But that was not all of course, the yard had a massive wood fire oven (not lit unfortunately), which he family use for grill and roasting meats, cooking pizza and homemade bread. Fritz was very happy with how excited we were by his oven, since we want to have one in our yard one day. There was an Edelweiss flower growing in a pot, which we didn’t realize at the time, but is the Austrian national flower and very rare as it only grows in high altitude. The yard also had an old lumberjack’s tent set up. This looked a bit like a tee-pee in shape and the interior had a straw bed and more tools and equipment inside it. On the way back through the first room Fritz showed us a trophy cabinet with all the awards he has won for his beard, which was very impressive! He had trophy’s from the Austrian, German, European and World beard contests as well as the Beard Olympics. There were also photos of Fritz wearing his lederhosen in different countries, including riding a camel in Egypt. After our beers we got going again, although I’m sure that they would have poured another one if they had half a chance. This was one of the most amazing little experiences we have had on our travels! After our long day we headed back to the campsite, cooked another bbq, which we had to light tonight. It was pretty dark and late by the time we actually got to eat. The next morning we woke to find that there was barely a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining. We had some nice views of the lake as well as the Kitzsteinhorn (3029m), which is the largest mountain in the Salzburg region, and our destination for the day.
From the campground we were able to take the bus all the way to Kaprun, the town where the cable car to the top departs from. It was actually a series of three cable cars to get to the summit. It was a bit surreal, but as we were going up, we were joined by people with skis. The top of the summit is a glacier which can be skied on all year round. While the ski run wasn’t very long and was very icy, it was still interesting to see. At the top there was a cinema with a short video of the summit and some of the wildlife in the area, mainly a hawk. There was a few viewing platforms as well as a long tunnel through the mountain which had some museum exhibits. There was a short toboggan run on the snow as well, although we weren’t dressed for the snow. We took the first cable car back down and then went for a short walk across the mountain to a lake. We had hoped the lake might be a bright emerald colour, but it wasn’t, rather a dark green in fact. After a few more photos we took fought the crowds of muslims to get on a gondola back down. Its amazing how pushy and rude these people are! We were in line and whole families (with 6-10 kids) would push past to get to the front of the line. It is the one thing we didn’t expect, but Zell am See is full of Muslim tourists. This made us even happier to be slightly out of the town in the friendly campground!
That said we did hang around Zell am See for a coffee and strudel as well as bit of a look at the town, which is nice, small but a bit touristy. Then we headed back to camp for yet another wonderful bbq. The next morning we were up pretty early, packed up our tent and headed to the train station headed to Salzburg, via Werfen.
Much of our journey through the alps was in the general direction of Werfen, as this is where the Ice Caves are. Unfortunately when we visited the caves as a day trip from Salzburg two weeks ago, Christine was ill and didn’t come along. So today we returned so that she could do a cave tour. We had thought that Damien would have to wait with the bags at the station, however the lovely girl working I the station let us store our packs for the afternoon. This meant that while Christine was up in the mountains climbing in ice caves, Damien had some leisure time, walking along the river sitting beside the river, climbing up to a nearby castle and visiting the town of Werfen for coffee and strudel.
The caves are amazing and Christine did enjoyed the tour. It was a much clearer day than when Mel and Damien visited so the mountains and valleys looked quite different. After her tour we continued on the train to Salzburg. The hostel we were staying at had heaps of school camps staying there this week, so they upgraded our stay from a dorm to a private hotel room in their other building.
Being a nice evening in Salzburg we headed straight out for a look around the old town. We walked around the back of the big palace on the hill, the Salzburg Dom and Mozart Square. The old town is really lovely with small cobbled streets, big open squares and heaps of statues and sculptures. After our walk around we had dinner in one of the squares, enjoying a schnitzel and mixed grill before returning to the hostel. We were back at the hostel a bit after 9pm, with business to attend to. We watched a movie called The Sound of Music. Now Christine had seen this and Damien recognized parts of it, but it’s a story about singing and goes for 3hrs! It was actually quite cool to watch it as it was filmed in Salzburg and we were able to recognize a lot of the scenes from our walk around town this evening. But the main reason we were watching the movie tonight, is that tomorrow we have a guided Sound of Music tour… The next morning we were up early for our big buffet breakfast before being collected from the hostel for our tour. After a few more pick ups in the old town we were all together and heading out of town. The tour was good but not great, but some of the scenery was lovely and we both enjoyed it. Our guide was Austrian and very friendly, and gave Damien a free beer since it was his birthday (tomorrow anyway). The first bit was a bit of a drive, with a few views of the castle from some distance and the railway station where they departed Austria in real life. The guide was good at differentiating the differences between the movie and the true story. For instance the real story they fled on a train, the oldest 2 kids were boys and the nanny was only for the youngest daughter who was sick. Also the nanny was 25 years younger than the father. But generally speaking the story in real life was pretty close to the film. The stops included the tree lined lane from the start of the film where the nanny is singing and dancing on her way to meet the family, the pavilion where they dance in the garden, the house used in the film (not the actual house), the lane where the kids climbed in the trees and the church they got married in. The pavilion was funny, the inside in the movie is actually a studio, and much larger than the actual pavilion. Also this is now locked, as some old tourist was dancing in there, fell and broke her hip, ruining it for everyone! The house in the film is different colours at the front and the back, the reason for this is that they actually used two different houses for filming. The tour did involve some nice driving through the alps and past some nice blue lakes, which was possibly the nicest part of the whole tour.
Back in town we had a look at the Mirabell Gardens, which of course was also used in the film, before catching the bus out to Hellbrunn Palace and gardens. Christine opted for a nap in the gardens while Damien visited the palace and ‘trick’ fountains. These were really cool, especially on a nice and sunny day! The palace had was still furnished and had many old paintings. The gardens were where the Prince Archbishop would entertain his guests. It is basically a beautiful manicured garden with outdoor seating, grotto’s and sculptures. However when you sit at the table, with a flick of the switch fountains shoot out of the table, walls and even the seat, drenching the guests. This continued throughout the tour of the gardens, with fountains springing from the most surprising parts including the paths, stairs and statues. Everything in the garden is gravity fed, no pumps, including the mechanical theater which had hundreds of moving wooden figurines. Still not done for the day we headed back to town and had some nice views crossing the river and climbing the hill on the other side of town. The aim of doing this was to find the Augustiner Braustubl, a brew house and beer garden. While we didn’t go the most direct way, we did get there eventually. The beer was really good, and easy to chose what to drink, there was only one beer. It was brewed by monks with fresh Austrian spring water, mmm… The garden was busy on a warm evening and the beer hall empty, but very traditional looking. As the night progressed we drank big steins, got talking to some locals and Christine even made friends with an Airedale Terrier. In the morning we weren’t feeling the best but had to check out early. It was pouring rain, so we rested on the hostel couches for a few hours while waiting for the rain to subside. Its Damien’s birthday, so we got to chat to a few people on skype. Then it was off to the train station headed for Vienna.