After yesterday’s failed Sound of Music pilgrimage, Nicholas decided that if the famous hills wouldn’t have him, he’d find his own mountain. Specifically, the Untersberg, which rises about 1,800 meters straight up from the Salzburg valley floor and has a cable car. Because Nicholas loves nature, but he loves efficiency more.
The Untersbergbahn runs from Grödig, a small town just south of Salzburg, all the way up to the Geiereck summit station at 1,776 meters. That’s a 1,320-meter altitude gain in about eight minutes. Nicholas approved of this math immediately.
Up the Mountain#
We stepped off the cable car and into what looked like an entirely different country. The valley was a patchwork of green fields and tiny towns far below. The airport runway looked like a piece of tape someone left on the floor. And the sky was doing something dramatic.
The ridge trail was wide and pale, with gravel paths winding along the plateau and views dropping away on both sides. It felt very exposed. Very alpine. Very “this would be a great place to get struck by lightning.”
We found a scenic lookout with an information board and the whole valley spread out behind us. You could see rain falling somewhere in the distance, which was either very scenic or very concerning depending on how much you trust weather.
There was a summit cross. We had to pose with it. The sky behind it looked like the opening credits of a Viking movie.
The Weather Changes Its Mind#
And then, very quickly, it stopped approving.
The fog came in like someone pulled a curtain across the ridge. One minute we had views for fifty kilometers. The next, we could see about twenty feet. There was still snow on the ground in patches, which in June feels like the mountain is showing off.
The trail got rockier. Rooty. There were sections threading through dwarf pines with Austrian red-and-white trail markers, and then suddenly you’d be next to another lingering snowfield that nobody had warned you about. June. Snow. Sure.
Then the fog cleared for about thirty seconds and the valley appeared again, framed by a torn cloud ceiling. It looked completely fake. Like someone had Photoshopped the Alps into a gap in the clouds just to mess with us.
Time to Leave#
The weather was not improving. The fog was thickening, and Nicholas started hearing what might have been distant thunder. When you’re on an exposed alpine ridge at 1,850 meters and the sky starts making threats, you take the hint.
I was not sad about this. The lightning was admittedly cool (I’m part thunderbird, it’s in my DNA), but exposed ridges and rain are two of my least favorite things, and the mountain was delivering both with enthusiasm. We retreated to the cable car and rode back down to Grödig, where the weather was, naturally, perfect again.
Mountains.
Evening: The Other Side of Town#
Back in Salzburg, the sky was clear and the evening light was doing that golden thing it does. Since we’d explored the west side of the old town yesterday, Nicholas decided to wander the other direction and see what was over there.
What was over there, it turned out, was more fortress.
We ended up on a walking path that wound along the old fortification walls on the hillside above the city. Walls, towers, ramparts, meadows. Every few minutes the trees would part and there’d be another view of Salzburg that looked like it had been placed there by a tourism board.
The path kept going. More walls. More unexpected panoramas. At one point we walked through what looked like a medieval pasture with a tiny house and a turret, which felt less like a European city walk and more like accidentally loading into a different game.
We crossed over to the other side of town and found more viewpoints. Salzburg from the east side is a different city. Instead of the tight old town streets, you get rooftop panoramas and the full fortress-on-a-hill silhouette.
The Grand Finale (Before Dinner)#
We kept walking until we found the viewpoint. The one where the entire old town spreads out below you and Hohensalzburg sits on top of it glowing in the last light of the day. It was the kind of view that makes you stop talking for a minute.
We passed one more church on the way down. Golden light, copper steeple, quiet churchyard with wooden benches. One of those places that only exists in European cities and desktop wallpapers.
Dinner#
Austrian food. Braised beef in dark gravy, crispy fried onions, spätzle, green beans. The kind of plate that says “you climbed things today and now you deserve carbs.”
Day one, we came for the Sound of Music hills and got catacombs and rooftop sunsets instead. Day two, we took a cable car up a mountain and got chased off by fog and lightning, then spent the evening wandering fortress walls we didn’t know existed.
Salzburg keeps doing this thing where you don’t get what you planned for, and what you get instead is better.
We have two more days here. I’m starting to think we should just stop planning and let the city decide.