One thing I don't think I've mentioned yet is that the rocks tend to sparkle in this part of the world. Really sparkle. I'd be hiking along and all of a sudden a rock would catch the sun in just the right moment and leave me thinking, "Gee, I wonder who threw that disco ball out of the airplane window?!". The effect isn't nearly as impressive when photographed. After doing a little research, we figured that the majority of the glitz we were seeing was gneiss. Nice!
More exciting weather moved in that afternoon, so we made pizza and stayed inside.
We had a lot of rain and some dramatic thunderstorms during the last few days, though I've forgotten the what and when by now.
We wanted to go on one last hike on our last day and decided on a ski resort (closed for the season) further up the valley where we had not yet been. The weather seemed to be improving, but the cloud level never hung quite high enough to show us the alpine views. That was alright though -- we'd had plenty of those and the mist-soaked valley was pretty dramatic in itself.
The sun was back again by the next morning, just in time to finish packing up the car and retrace our drive through the Gerlos Pass and on through other magnificent scenery. We still wanted to tour the ice cave we'd checked out briefly at the beginning of the trip, so headed back to Werfen.
The tour of the ice cave was pretty adventurous and very different from the caves I'd experienced before. Photography wasn't allowed inside (and for good reason) so I decided not to lug my camera along in the hot hot heat. The journey there was part of the experience -- first you drive up up up the mountain road to the commercial entrance, then hike a short distance to a cable car, take the cable car zip zip further up the mountain (during which you pretend not to be listening intently to the conversation next to you in which a girl from Massachusetts jokes around with some Austrian kids in English), then hug your way around the mountain curve for a while longer until you get to the cave entrance. There you are instructed to put on your coats and hats (which feels a little ridiculous because it's so hot outside), the tourers are lined up, and oil lamps are evenly distributed along the line. Then the tour starts and the line passes shrieking through a rough door in the wall, met on the other side by cold darkness and an impressively strong, freezing wind that puffs out all the oil lamps in a moment. The oil lamps are relit and voilà! Black. From the low glow of the oil lamps you can make out a giant mound of ice and a rickety, partly frozen-over staircase that will require all of your attention to ascend. The tour guide stops at various natural ice sculptures and illuminates them by striking magnesium flares, burning bright white. Ooohs and aaahs. You learn all about the Histories while trying to wrap your mind around the extreme temperature change, thinking, "Well duh, ice cave". The tour continues like this, up staircases, through narrow passages opening into giant rooms, and eventually down down down and out, where it is hot and the light is blinding. Psych. Later, you go to the shop and look at the postcard images, which are very impressive but not entirely truthful. I know because I was there, and the images I have in my mind are not clear and colorful, but rather fleeting, flare-lit moments in which I try to take in as many details as I can before the light burns out.
All this is followed by the best Apfelstrudel of the trip and a drive back down the mountain, the Hohenwerfen Castle growing ever larger in the descent.
From there we made our way back to Salzburg and flew home the next day, away from the mountains and back to that sweet, flat city I know so well.
