Lovely morning. Yesterday, when I tried to take a book off the shelf, a brochure that was stuck between the books fell off. It was a brochure about the Eisriesenwelt, a great cold labyrinth in Wilfen, near Salzburg, Austria. Feared by locals as the gateway to hell, it is the world’s longest ice cave, but it is also a magical underground world of natural ice sculptures and forms.
The Salzkammergut region of Austria is one of the most picturesque regions in the world. The picturesque town of Hallstatt, with its picturesque lakeside houses and churches and the majestic Dachstein massif, has been inscribed on the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape of the Salzkammergut.We took a bus from the outskirts of Hallstatt to the middle of the majestic Tengingielgi mountain, where we took a 3-minute ride on a vertical cable car that seemed like a lift.
After getting off the cable car, we bought our tickets and then walked up the steep mountain road for about 40 minutes to the ice caves. The queue to buy the tickets was long, but we waited in line, although we could hear the calm voices of tourists from all over Europe speaking different languages.
After buying our tickets we walked up the mountain path and looked down at the beautiful green mountains. We arrived at the entrance to a huge cave, which was gaped into the mountainside. The hour-long tour begins. There is a German tour and an English tour, so we choose the English tour. The depth of the cave is 42 km. The only one open to the public is the 1km-long ice cave, where visitors are treated to an extraordinary sight.One cantera for every four or five people was given to those who were strong enough.
There is no lighting in the ice cave to keep the temperature as low as possible and to preserve the natural ice as much as possible. We had to walk by cantera lights, but it was a very romantic and beautiful sight. The guide, a young man, would stop at each point of the ice cave and light up the area with some kind of metal wire to temporarily light up the area and explain the cave. The beauty of the sculpted ice behind the light was beyond words and very moving. The journey was difficult and the guide would occasionally come back to the back of the queue with a gentle smile, a joke or a word of encouragement.
As we were not allowed to take photographs, we were truly moved by the beauty and strength of nature and were able to capture it in our eyes. This is one of the places I will definitely visit again when the pandemic is over. Looking at the brochures, I remembered the beautiful scenery and even the delicious soup we had at the restaurant on the way down after the tour.