Category Archives: Photographs: Austria

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Nature

Cliff-Edge Forest Above Werfen

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Cliff-Edge Forest Above Werfen
Cliff-Edge Forest Above Werfen

Cliff-Edge Forest Above Werfen. Near Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves, Austria. July 19, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Forest trees and grassy meadow at the edge of a cliff above the town of Werfen, Austria

For looking to be such an astonishingly exposed location, this spot was actually quite easy to get to. Sorry if I disappoint anyone! ;-) Above the town of Werfen, Austria, not far from Salzburg, is a feature known as the Eisriesenwelt Ice Cave. It is a well-known and popular tourist destination, and since our “guides” (family members who live in Germany) suggested it, we went and joined the other tourists. Although this post isn’t really about the ice cave, I’ll at least mention that it is quite a spectacular thing to visit. The cave itself is quite something, but so is the process of getting to it. The cave is located very high up the face of a cliff above the Salzach River valley, in a place that you would hardly imagine would be accessible by normal folks. However, a combination of hiking, taking a ski-lift style tram, and then hiking some more, this time on a well-constructed trail across the face of the cliff, brings you to the entrance to the cave.

After we finished our tour of the cave we emerged into the sunlight to see that it was clouding up. As we hiked down to the upper tram station we began to hear some distant thunder. The moist atmosphere became thick, and although it was still mostly sunny in the valley below, many of the distant valleys and ridges were becoming partially obscured. At one point the trail followed the contour of a small gully and looped back away from the cliff edge, affording a view back across this bit of meadow and forest that ended abruptly at the edge of the void where the cliff dropped to the Salzach Valley below.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Window Shadows and Reflections

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Window Shadows and Reflections
Window Shadows and Reflections

Window Shadows and Reflections. Salzburg, Austria. July 17, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The shadows and faint reflections of a window create patterns on a wall in Salzburg, Austria

Although we did not actually stay in Salzburg during out July 2013 travels, we managed to end up there on four of our 7 days in Bavaria. Our trail from Heidelberg arrived in Salzburg and our return train departed here. On a couple of other days we were traveling around the area to visit various features not far from Salzburg, so we ended up there for a few hours – on two occasions having a late lunch, taking part in Salzburg’s “coffee culture,” and then wandering around. We did see some of the main tourist places, such as the square near the Salzburg Cathedral, the castle, and the narrow and bustling (and a bit uncomfortably commercial) streets of the old downtown, but we also managed to walk through a few less busy areas.

Some of these walks took us through some very narrow and old streets between the main part of old Salzburg and the outlying area where we parked. Here the buildings sit right up against the streets, and the streets themselves were obviously constructed in a pre-automobile era since they are barely a single car wide. Many things intrigued me about these narrow streets beside their mere narrowness: the various muted colors of the buildings, the ways the streets twist and turn and come together at odd angles, the interesting way that the light played on the scene as it came down from far above or shone down street that aligned with the sun, and some of the architectural features such as the windows and the interesting metal street lights that seemed to be everywhere. In this photograph the sun was rather high in the sky but almost in line with the street, and the image of the shadows of the open windows almost mirrors the fainter pattern of the reflections from the glass.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Nature

Eisriesenwelt Trail, Alps

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Eisriesenwelt Trail, Alps
Eisriesenwelt Trail, Alps

Eisriesenwelt Trail, Alps. Near Werfen, Austria. July 19, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Hikers descend the trail from the ice caves of Eisriesenwelt above the town of Werfen, Austria

Over a period of three weeks, our July 2013 visit to Europe took us to parts of Germany and Austria, and to London before that. The London portion of the trip was almost wholly and urban experience, but the time in Germany (with side trips into Austria) was quite a bit more varied. One significant difference is that while we hit our share of tourist areas, that’s not all we did since a) we were visiting relatives who are long-time residents of Germany and b) we traveled, as we often do, without a specific advance plan about what we would visit – at least beyond our fixed plan to stay in certain places on certain dates. Perhaps for this reason, and because I travel as a photographer as much as a tourist, the photographs from this trip may seem a bit eclectic and will cover a wide range of subjects.

This photograph was made at a popular tourist attraction not far from Salzburg and above town of Werfen, the Eisriesenwelt, also known as the Eisriesenwelt Ice Cave. There is a lot to say about this place – too much for this post – but I’ll give a bit of background. The cave is located far up the mountainside – more of a cliff, actually – above the town. The popular tour visits amazing underground ice formations near the mouth of the cave, though I understand that the cave system goes much farther back into the mountains. After driving up from Werfen, you walk uphill a short distance to a ski-lift style cable car system that takes you up the steep face almost to the cave… but you still have an additional uphill walk from there to the cave itself. (This being Europe, though, you can stop at the parking lot, the lower end of the tram, the upper end of the tram, and the same places going back down to sit, have a bite to eat, and drink a beer!) The trail between the upper tram station and the entrance to the cave is quite something. It traverses terrain that would scare the life out of people not used to very high and very exposed places – though a very civilized path has been built along the edge of the void, covered in some places for protection from rockfall. In this photograph, a section of the trail winds around a promontory with the deep Salzach Valley and Alpine ridges beyond.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.