On our way to the city of Salzburg, we made a stop at a town called Zell am See, and stayed there overnight. It is not far from Salzburg, in fact it is in the same state, also called Salzburg. This is basically ski country in winter time, hiking for the summer. Our hotel (more like a road-side motel) seems to be a good place for skiers, but this time around the hotel is filled with people doing road trips. The town itself was pretty quietly, with only a handful of people. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that we got there pretty late. Most places were closed already, so we were lucky to find a restaurant open late even in quiet season. Food was alright with good price, but they spoke little English; so we kinda feel like eating where locals eat.
There are a few interesting attractions between here and the city of Salzburg. One of the more well-known attractions is the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, which we visited just before we checked into our hotel in Zell am See. Then on the next day, we visited two more attractions before getting to Salzburg. In terms of timing, I think we followed our plan quite good; one attraction in the morning, another one in early afternoon, and then reaching Salzburg in early evening. Both attractions require some hiking (nothing Naomi could not handle.) First attraction we went to is called Liechtenstein Gorge, where they built walkpaths in a narrow canyon in mountains. There is a river running through it as we walked up, and eventually when we reached the end, there was a nice big waterfall.
Then in the afternoon, we went to an attraction called Eisriesenwelt, literally means World of the Ice Giants. It is supposed to be the largest ice cave in the world, and with some lighting inside, it is quite nice to look at. However, it is a long way from the parking lot to the actual cave; there was 40 minutes of walking with a cable car ride in the mix. I actually thought the hike going up was not bad, and we got some really nice weather. We just had to rush a little bit when we got close to the cave because the ice cave tour was about to begin. The tour wasn’t terribly exciting, we just get to walk a bit in this huge cave, and to see some interesting ice formation with pretty lights. Like most other places, we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but I doubt we can have any nice pictures in such dark cave.
