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10:58pm on Tuesday, 9th August, 2011:

Tour Day

Anecdote

Today, we went on two tours.

Oh, it rained most of the time, by the way...

The first tour was to the salt mines in Berchtesgaden, over the border in Germany. These were surprisingly not naff. We had to dress up in boiler suits (mine had a crotch 6 inches too low) and ride in on a train. English-speakers got their own pre-recorded commentry, which included such gems as "a cavern the size of a gymnasium", "sparkling spectacle of dancing ornaments" and multiple use of the word "apertinent", which may well be a word in English but it's not one with which any of we English-speakers were familiar.

Anyway, the tour involved a train ride like a roller-coaster except in a straight line, then a slide down a pair of wooden rails, then a look at some machinery and stuff, then another luge ride, then a sail across an underground lake on a barge while a light show played, then a funicular ascent, then another mini-train ride out. Given that it was only a salt mine, it was unexpectedly enjoyable. It was less likely to kill me than the ice caves, too.

I don't have any pictures as they wouldn't let us take any for "security reasons" (ie. people would slow down to take them and then they couldn't get as great a throughout of tourists).

The second trip was a coach ride to Lake Wolfgang, where a boat took us to the town of St Wolfgang. There were no seats left, so we all had to stand. Also, we had first-hand experience of how the lakes are made from the persistent downpour. Still, St Wolfgang itself was quite nice and we came back in a coach so got chance to dry off before arriving in Salzburg (which appeared to have had largely good weather while we were elsewhere).

Here's a photo my elder daughter took on the way back, using the camera she got for her 21st birthday:

It's so powerful, when she shoots it gets recoil.

Referenced by Picture This.


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Copyright © 2011 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).