SchafbergBahn

We eventually arrived here after nearly 2 hours driving from Salzburg and were able to park the car in the last remaining parking space at the railway station. €82 later we had our tickets and after a brief stop for an ice cream we boarded the train. The train had 2 large carriages but we were lucky enough to get two rows to ourselves. Progress was slow (it is a pretty steep mountain, 1700m at the final station) and it barely created a breeze inside on this baking hot day where we all had to wear damned sweat masks. After about half an hour we got off at the summit station. On the way up we'd seen swathes of trees, seemingly clinging to bare rock and beautiful Austrian chalets on the hillsides as well as the occasional masochistic hiker that insisted on walking up in 35 degree heat. I expected to just take a couple of pictures and then head to the cafe but even my cycnical city head was awestruck by the sheer majesty of the lakes and mountains. All the cliches were there, azure blue lakes, jagged mountain peaks and nutters on paragliders. Every corner we took opened up a new vista so we walked for about an hour just enjoying the scenery. This was despite some hugely vertigo inducing sights and absolutely no safety precautions! We then went into the summit cafe for an ice cream coffee for me and another puritan black coffee for Deb. We sat on the terrace enjoying the shade of the umbrella and the sugar rush from the ice cream before joining the queue for the train down the mountain.