Austria - vier

Right at the end of the holiday we decided to go and see Eisriesenwelt, the biggest ice caves in the world. You were not allowed to take photographs inside the caves, and the only light was from the hand-held carbide lamps that you can just see in the background of the photo above.

The caves were amazing, vast, stretching back into the mountains 30 miles or so, but obviously only a relatively small area is accessible to the public.  The people who discovered and made a way through the caves are long since dead, but its amazing to realise what we can now see in the comfort of our warm, robust shoes and clothes is down to the blood, sweat and tears of  brave adventurers who went before, with very much less.

Amazing how this face seems to creep up everywhere!

There was a big climb up to the ice caves, the weather wasn't brilliant, and maybe the fog and mist stopped us feeling too woozy whilst going up!

On the way out from Eisreisenwelt I persuaded the others that we should visit Salzburg, and see if we could see any of the places from 'The Sound of Music'.  The boys had all seen the film and middle boy especially was really enthusiastic to see the sights.  The organised trips were very expensive, but good old Google came to the fore when I found a local's advice on where to go to see the filming locations.

Salzburg was wonderful, we will definitely go back again.  On the bridge that spans the river, there were lots of padlocks, and on closer inspection they had initials etched onto them.  So being the true romantics, we joined in too!

The engraver

There it is....hope we will be able to find it next time!

This was our final supper in Austria....a.goodbye to the beautiful town of Zell am See over a slice or three of kuchen.  

I truly loved Austria....a little bit of me is left there I think....somewhere up there in those mountains.  When I got home I was so fired up I signed up for a Open University course in German so that when we go back (And we will!) I can Sprechen Deutsch.

If hope you enjoyed seeing our holiday snaps....we had a wonderful time, made lots of brilliant memories and challenged ourselves  further in our walking as a family than we've been challenged before.