Nature’s in the spotlight in Werfen, in Austria’s Salzburg region. here, ice caves burrow below plateaus, a medieval castles straddles a hilltop and the mountains rise rugged and ready for Hollywood.
As the first rays of summer warm the Austrian Alps, the pastures are carpeted with fat buttercups and pink clover. Bees hum over them, and the clang of cowbells rings through a valley of spruce forest. The Tennen Mountains punch high above me, looking like the ramparts of a fantasy fort.
And there is indeed a drop of golden sun as I walk along the gentle, hour-long Sound of Music Trail from Werfen to Gschwandtanger, an Alpine meadow above the town. I’m hiking with local tourist office manager Alexandra Hager, one of the trail’s pioneers, who tells me it’s been designed to shine a light on Werfen’s big-screen connections and cinematic beauty. But unlike the filming locations in Salzburg, which tend to be crowd favourites, up here it’s utterly peaceful.
The castle’s eagles, these days, appear in bird of prey shows, swooping, screeching and whooping above the castle’s walls. Yet, I find my gaze drifting to the mountains that rise like a curtain above Werfen. I wonder if there are eagles up there, too.The next morning, sunrise makes the Tennen Mountains blush in purple-pinks. Though not especially high in Alpine terms, capping out at around 2,400m, these peaks are as wild as they come.
Cut into the mountainside, the trail is barely more than a boot-width wide and includes sections of via ferrata. Heart racing, I pop on my helmet and clip onto the fixed cable securing my safe passage. To my right, cliffs fall to the valley below. The scree slides. From the grassy ridge of 2,281m Hochkogel mountain, the view upstages anything I’ve seen so far, reaching deep into the Salzach Valley and over to the ragged Hochkönig massif. The karst plateau is the cake-topper for the world’s largest accessible ice caves, Eisriesenwelt , where I head the next morning for a 70-minute guided tour. A blast of cold air, like a freezer door being opened, hits me at their gaping entrance.
We climb 700 steps past a slope of sheer, smooth ice to the highest point of the caves. The ice in the tunnels and chambers at the top is otherworldly, rising in great waves and cascading in falls. May and June are ideal times to visit; there are filigree icicles and huge sculptures, hoarfrost that makes the walls glitter and stalactites as thick as Roman columns.
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