Monday, 29 June 2009

• 5 Days in Austria

  What a busy month June's been!  So busy I haven't had a chance to update my xanga for almost the whole month. And if I haven't come down with a nasty infection, I wouldn't even have noticed.

  Let's start where I left off the last time.

  Nova Rock, Nickelsdorf

  I've always wanted to go check out a music festival in Europe since I heard S talking about it last year. I haven't been to even one of the numerous festivals in Prague, and I was planning to go, when I discovered Nova Rock in Austria.  My friends and I were so impressed with the line-up that we decided to make the almost 5-hour journey to Nickelsdorf about 2 weeks ago for our first taste of an Austrian music festival.

  

  It was hot and dusty on the first day of the festival when we arrived. We heard on the radio on the bus ride to the festival that there would be 150,000 people attending the festival.  The number of tents we saw pitched when we arrived at the festival site was testament to this.

  

  It took us ages to find a suitable spot to pitch our tents, but we had an experienced festival goer in our midst, M, and we totally trusted his judgment in the choice of location ("don't pitch tents near the toilets, stage or footpaths if you wanna sleep at all at night"). 

  

  When the rain started coming down on Saturday, I was relieved that we followed M's advice, as our tent was relatively untouched and far away from the mud pit.  I saw so many tents mangled, toppled and destroyed as people did their utmost to avoid walking in the deep slippery mud on Saturday. It was interesting watching people become creative with their rainwear (garbage bags, anyone?) during the festival. And no, our spirits were not dampened by the uncooperative weather.

  Salzburg and Werfen

  Ukranian Ice Queen and I decided to take a couple more days off before the festival to see Salzburg and its surrounds.

  

  Festung Hohensalzburg

  

  View of the Austrian Alps

  

  View from Hotel Sacher, the creator of the original Sachertorte

  

  A street entertainer holding Austrian schoolchildren in his thrall

  We spent one day roaming around Salzburg city, checking out Festung Hohensalzburg and Altstadt, hiking around Kapuzinerberg, and ending the day gorging ourselves with fine Austrian cuisine. Salzburg is a small, pretty city surrounded by snowcapped alps, and obsessed with being the birthplace of Mozart (there's even chocolate balls covered in Mozart's face) and with being the filming location of the classic movie, The Sound of Music. Many a time when I was hiking up to the Festung and around Kapuzinerberg, I was so moved  by the beautiful scenery that I broke into song, singing my favourite tunes from The Sound of Music at the top of my lungs. It's a pity my travel companions don't know the movie or its soundtrack (the movie wasn't so popular in Europe apparently), so I didn't have a little choir like Maria had with the kids.  This was probably for the best as we'd attract some strange looks from other tourists if we all started singing "Doe a deer".

  

  Festung Hohenwerfen

  

  Scenery on the hike up to Eisriesenwelt

  

  The view from the entrance to the ice caves

  We spent day 2 travelling to Werfen en route to Eisriesenwelt (ice world). I first read about Eisriesenwelt, the largest ice caves accessible to man, in Lonely Planet's Austria guide and was immediately enticed to go check it out.

  After arriving at Werfen, we took a shuttle bus to the ticket office of Eisriesenwelt. After getting our tickets, we began the 20-minute uphill hike to the cable car. After getting off the cable car, it was another 20-minute hike before we reached the entrance to the ice caves, which are 1641 metres above sea level. Even though the hike was uneventful, reading a warning sign about falling rocks and seeing the rocks accumulated on the shelter on parts of the path unnerved me slightly.  But once inside the ice caves, I forgot about the hike and was mesmerised by the ice formations inside.

  Eisriesenwelt was first discovered by 1879 by Anton Posselt, a natural scientist form Salzburg, and was open to visitors in the 1920s. The ice formations in the caves change according to the season and how the stalactites and stalacmites develop over time. There's a formation that looks like an ice palace, one that looks like an elephant (sans head) and one that looks like a bear.  We all carried little oil lamps while inside the cave, which can sometimes be a pain to hold since the temperature inside hovered consistently around the 0 degree Celsius mark.  The guide burnt strings of magnesium to light up the formations for us to see, and explained each formation in both German and English.  As this was my first experience of being inside an ice cave, it was naturally memorable, and is now listed as one of my top 5 experiences of my life. What baffles me is how so few people I've spoken to even knew Eisriesenwelt exists, considering that Lonely Planet has included it in its latest Austrian guide.

  Having had no expectations of Austria, I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed my first trip there.  It's amazing how much natural beauty is packed into such a small country.  I'm already looking forward to my next trip there, hopefully to conquer the alps.

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