The Scroop's European Holiday: Salzburg

It was an early wake up this morning as we set the alarm for 5am to get up and watch the footy, The mighty Hawks were taking on Freo in the GF. We set up the laptop on the coffee table in our apartment and sat back to watch the Hawks get over Freo by 15 points to grab their 11^th premiership. What a win and soon as the siren went we were on the internet to get our official 2013 premiers merchandise. The telecast finished around 10am so we went into the old town to get some groceries. After that we came back to the apartment for lunch and to get ready to go on our tour to the ice caves. We walked directly to the coach this time which took us 10 minutes rather than do the 1 hour round trip. We jump on board and Tyler and Mia secure us seats at the front again and we take the ½ hour bus ride to the Ice Cave car park. It was another hairy ride up the side of a mountain with amazing views. Once off the bus we then have a 15 minute walk to the cable car and the walk is up hill and also on the side of a mountain. We get to the cable car and this is the steepest cable car in Austria. Again we get some amazing views as this thing climbs higher and higher. Once off the cable car we have another 15 minute walk, again up hill and this time we are even closer to the edge of the mountain. We get to the entrance of the cave and a tour guide is waiting. We join a large group of people and we enter the cave. Just before we enter the tour guide gives some people a lantern. Its a little gas type lantern with a flame similar to a candle. I was one of the people given one and this was to light the way for about 10 people. The guide opens the doors to the cave and we enter and we get this howling, freezing cold breeze the hits us but once inside there is no wind. It is very cold though. We start the 700 step climb up the cave and it is amazing. There are natural ice sculptures dropping from the ceiling of the cave and the ice on the floor slopes at about 70 degrees. We make our way through the cave continuing to see some amazing things and then we make the 700 step descent. We exit the cave and make our way back down to the cable car stop where there is a restaurant. We stop for a hot chocolate before our tour guide rounds us up and gets us back on the cable car and back down the hill to the bus. The tour guide was a funny chap, he was a German who wore lederhosen and a funny Austrian style alpine hat. He provided some entertaining dialogue on the bus and it made for a good afternoon. We arrived back in Salzburg just after 6pm and we headed back to the apartment to shower up and back down to the Italian restaurant below our apartment. We had a magnificent last dinner that topped a fantastic day. Tomorrow we leave for Switzerland.