After our stay in Moosburg, it was on to The beautiful country of Austria. Our first stop was a region called the Salzkammergut, an area near Salzburg with lots of lakes and mountains. We stayed in Bad Ischl, a centrally located town which is famous for being a vacation spot of Austrian emperors. Our place, called Landhaus Fay, was a little far out of town, so we had to get a taxi to get there and walk 45 minutes back the next day. Luckily the owners (Mark and Renee) were able to pick us up on the last day and they also drove us back to the train station. Renee was Swedish and Mark English, and they were very very nice. Plus is was great to have some more people to talk to in English. Like my umbrella?
Unfortunately is rained on us nearly nonstop. The first day we went to a city called Obertraun, which is a small lakeside village. Soaking wet, we found the cable car that took us up part of the mountain to a spectacular ice cave. We entered the cave at a temperature of about 3 degrees Celsius, and it only got colder from there. We entered the next room and suddenly it was covered with ice. It was really neat and something I have never seen before. It was also quite cold, as we were already wet and we did not pack for freezing temperatures. Outside the cave it looked like there were some amazing views, but with all the clouds and fog you could only catch glimpses.
We were planning on going to the city of Hallstatt after that, but it was just too wet, rainy, and cold, so we headed back to Bad Ischl instead. We found a nice little cafe, which happened to have really good hot chocolate, and then had to walk back to our place because the bus doesn't run in the afternoon in the summer. It was actually nice to spend a night in. We had internet, and we watched a DVD that we borrowed from the owners Mark and Renee.
The next day the weather forecast was better, so we set out on a hike. We were headed for a peak called the Predictstuhl, which was about a 3 hour hike from our place close to the nearby town of Bad Goisern. It was very wet on the train, but the rain held off for the most part. We wanted to walk along the ewige Wand (eternal wall) first, which is a huge vertical cliff face where they cut a path into the rock, but unfortunately that threw us off course. The signs were difficult to follow, so we didn't quite make it up to the top like we had hoped, but was still a fun hike and we saw some great views. We got down to Bad Goisern after hiking around 20 km, and it started to rain just before we got to the train station to catch the train back.
Back in Bad Ischl we ate at a great pizza place that Renee had recommended. It was very good and the pizzas were huge. They also had excellent Tiramisu. That night we got back early enough to watch another movie in English. It was a good time in the rainy Salzkammergut, but it would have better if we had had a car. There seem to be a lit of little towns to explore like in Tuscany, but without a car it is difficult to do that. The rain also obviously hurt a lot. Luckily for us we had Vienna to look forward to as our next stop.
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