Day 8 - Werfen, Austria

Today was very rainy in Salzburg. We watched the radar to see where the rain was moving. Since it was it was moving northwest we decided to go south to Werfen, which is a place that is high on my want to see list. If anyone has ever seen the movie "Where Eagles Dare" with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, this is the Schloss Adler. It's real name is Hohenwerfen. Fortunately, I didn't have to ride up on the top of a cable car and scale the side of the fortress.

The train station was also in the movie. You can barely see the fortress through the trees.

Here I zoomed in.

We saw groups putting rafts in the water of the Salach river. The train to Werfen runs right next to the river. The river is fast moving with a lot of rapids. I'm sure it is freezing cold as well.

The entrance was somewhat tricky to find. I didn't see any clear signage, only a crude map in the train station. We walked through the center of town and then walked a short distance down a fairly busy road. This time my directional instinct was accurate (sometimes it hasn't been). When we bought the tickets for the round trip cable car and museum, they also gave us a piece of chocolate.

The cable car was more like an elevator. (This picture is looking back down).

Only the exteriors (including the inner courtyard) were actually in the movie. I did not see any familiar inner rooms. The tour was challenging with all the narrow stairs and low celings. We went all the way up to the bell which was very challenging. I think I had more room to maneuver walking through my ship's hatches than I did getting up to the bell. But the view was incredible. 

I did not take a picture of the bell or the stairs to get up (see Mom's blog). I pretty much had to rest my right shoulder on the right hand rail and 'slide' up the rail sideways as I made the near vertical ascent to fit.

You can see where we were from the courtyard. 

We took a train back to Salzburg. It makes a difference what train you get on. The train we got to Werfen on only had two stops before the one we wanted. The train going back stopped at every station going back. Some trains are more rural than others. You can usually tell by the time it takes for the trains to travel the same distance which one you are taking. 

Travel Tips:

The sidewalks roll up around 7 or 8pm. So if you get the munchies you're S-O-L, they don't have all-night quick stops. 

In some of the smaller train stations, the "information" booth consists of an ATM style ticket machine. So if your looking to talk to someone, or get a print out of a train schedule, your out of luck.

The train we got on to get to Werfen was older and did not have any type of displays to tell you what stop was coming up, and it would be very difficult to hear the conductors talking even if they did speak English, which they don't. Before we left the hotel, I was looking at the area using Google Maps on my iPad. I noticed that if you already have the map open to the area of interest, the GPS will show you where you are. However, it will not show you any other area that it has to download to your device since there is no wifi on most trains.