The City of Salt
Austria!! We finally made it here. Salzburg is the “City of Salt” and all the buildings are white. It really is a beautiful city. Our hostel was pretty cool but it was like a shrine for the movie, The Sound of Music. Salzburg is where the movie was filmed but the hostel played the movie 24/7. It felt like being in a torture room where they force you to watch gruesome films or morbid photos and see how you react after hours of it. I heard the songs everywhere I went. The hostel was filled with photos from the movie, the tours were all directed towards the movie. I knew we could not stay in there that long. But despite the torturous music, I succumbed to it and did a tour of where the movie was filmed. I do not remember seeing the movie that much when I was little but I have seen it or fell asleep to it. The house with the lake front was cool to see but that movie actually did a lot for Salzburg. It put them on the map and brought them a lot of tourism so they are proud of the movie.
The streams are so crystal clear because the water comes from the mountains. We do not have that here in New Jersey, we call it dirty jersey water. The oceans here are disgusting and it is a shame we do not take care of it as much as we should. I am not trying to bash my state but I speak the truth and some of the truths may be hard to hear but at least you won’t be too shocked when I tell you about it.
Anyway, the next day we decided to go see the largest ice cave in the world called Hohenwerfen by a tour group called Panorama Tours. The nickname for the ice cave is “The Land of the Ice Giants”. It was quite a hike up the mountain but after 20 minutes or so we took a little gondola car up to the midway point and then walked the rest to the top. When we walked to the front, the opened the doors and the air literally sucked you in, it was so weird. I almost fell over. Chris and I only had our hoodies and cropped pants so we were not prepared for how cold it would be in there at all. I could not feel my hands by the end or my feet. It was just below zero the whole time. So if you decide to go, make sure you wear proper clothing and good shoes with grip so you don’t slip. I was slipping and sliding all over the place because my shoes could not hold onto the ice. The formations were incredible, the teeth chattering subsided by the awe of how beautiful the ice was.
