♪♪♪--- “The hills are alive, With the sound of music ---“
This is the opening song sung by Julie Andrews as Maria in the film “Sound of Music” with the overwhelming pristine alpine meadow catching our eyes. Many of my friends were enchanted by Julie Andrews, the Trap family's lovely children and the romantic mountain scenery when we were young. The Austrian Alps seemed to promise me ideal hiking opportunities with fascinating landscapes and well organized hiking trails at varying altitudes and levels of difficulty.
So I decided to go hiking on Austrian Alps for this summer vacation.
I had traveled in Austria for two weeks from July 9 to 22, 2015, visiting Salzburg, Zell Am See, and Lienz with Vienna but just as a transit from/to Tokyo, Japan. Both Zell Am See and Lienz are small country towns surrounded by mountains, providing a good access to the Hohe Tauern National Park, the largest nature reserve in Central Europe with an area of over 1,834 km2.
<Zell Am See> <Lienz>
Mt. Schafberg in the Sazlzkammergut
On the 3rd day in Salzburg, I went to Mt. Schafberg, 1783m high in the Sazlzkammergut, where the old cog trains are going up and down between the summit and St. Wolfgang, a small town at the shore of Wolfgangsee Lake. This cog train is also shot in the picnic scene of the cinema “Sound of Music”.
I took the public Postbus No.5 from Salzburg central bus station to St. Gilgen, where I got a round trip ticket for the summit of Mt. Schafberg, including the rides on ferry boats to St. Wolfgang and on the cog trains.
<St. Gilgen> <Wolfgang lake>
St. Gilgen is located 25 km east of Salzburg and well known for the home of Mozart's grandfather where his mother was born. The above photo in the right side shows this house, which stood just next to the ferry port. The ferry boat took me to St. Wolfgang in less than one hour, where I changed to a cog train connecting between the summit of Mt. Schafberg and the shore.
The Salzkammergut area called as Lake District is comprised of 76 lakes surrounded by numerous mountains with the height of around 2000 m. The name Salzkammergut comes from "Estate of the Salt Chamber" and the salt had formed the basis of the prosperity of this region along with Salzburg from the prehistoric era through the Hapsburg Monarchy to the middle of the 20th century.
On the summit I found a nice restaurant and enjoyed beer, having great views of the surrounding mountains and lakes. It was a rare experience for me to drink a glass of beer on the top of mountains with no care to further effort to walk, just relaxing until the designated cog train down to the lake would leave the summit station.
(to be continued; next "Zell Am See")
