O Tannenbaum - A tour of German Christmas Markets and other spots

[OZDUCK]

Were you wearing some cleats or something on your shoes or just good grip shoes

No just normal leather walking shoes with a patterned 'rubber' sole. But I was very careful about walking on the ice and for once was keeping a good eye on the path instead of gawping around. I slid a little bit a few times but never got close to falling. Maybe it was my extra mass providing a better grip?

Edit: As Pushka said my shoes were also well waterproofed and we topped it up again halfway through the trip. My feet never felt damp or cold even in the snow. My shoes were bought on a two for one special at the outlet mall near Perth Airport and so only cost around $35 - $40.

 

[OZDUCK]

We bought a 2 Day Salzburg Card. It gives free travel on the the trams and buses - but not the S Bahn. Plus you could visit a number of the historic sights for 'free'. It saved us money and was convenient. But a number of attractions were closed for the season and several closed for major renovations so it wasn't as good a money saver as it normally would have been.

Salzburg Card : Salzburg all-inclusive offer

Save money like never before! The Salzburg Card gives you free access to all of Salzburg

www.salzburg.info

One of the freebies was to visit Hohensalzburg Fortress - the biggest fully preserved medieval fortress in Europe - and use the funicular for a return trip.

To be honest the interior of the fortress is interesting but not really special. The views from the heights were really the highlight

From one of the lower points



The interior







Luxury toilet for the Prince-ArchBishop



Elaborate tiled heater





View from the formal rooms. The bright 'candles' in the top left are reflections from the interior lights.

 

[OZDUCK]

There is a small military museum inside the fortress.

A slightly macabre exhibit is the death mask of Field Marshall Josef Radetzky a significant military figure during the Napoleonic wars. Johan Strauss Sr wrote the eponymous march in his honour. We also spotted his likeness during our visit to the Valhalla Monument in Germany last year

Joseph Radetzky von Radetz - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is quite a bit about the war on the Italian front in WW1. The local regiment was heavily involved there.














We then made our way up a fairly rickety staircase to the highest point of the fortress.

 

[OZDUCK]

The view from the top was stunning - as well as being pretty chilly. You could see how much snow had fallen recently













The local kids were having fun

I couldn't figure out what this was. Looking on google it turned out to be the Krauthügel Art Project

Krauthügel Art Project : Public Art : salzburg.info

The “Krauthügel Project” features a different artwork every year during the summer months, with Hohensalzburg Fortress providing an imposing backdrop.

www.salzburg.info

 

[VPS]

No just normal leather walking shoes with a patterned 'rubber' sole. But I was very careful about walking on the ice and for once was keeping a good eye on the path instead of gawping around. I slid a little bit a few times but never got close to falling. Maybe it was my extra mass providing a better grip?

Edit: As Pushka said my shoes were also well waterproofed and we topped it up again halfway through the trip. My feet never felt damp or cold even in the snow. My shoes were bought on a two for one special at the outlet mall near Perth Airport and so only cost around $35 - $40.

@OZDUCK and @Pushka what did you use to waterproof your shoes?

 

[OZDUCK]

@OZDUCK and @Pushka what did you use to waterproof your shoes?

I just used a spray from Coles/Woolies like the one below. In Germany I bought a similar one from Edeka. It worked well on all of our shoes.

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/148720/maseur-footcare-weather-guard

 

[Pushka]

@OZDUCK and @Pushka what did you use to waterproof your shoes?

Absolutely. Mutiple times. Spray. Let them dry out for a day (under the verandah) and rinse and repeat. Reckon i did this maybe a dozen times. But not while we were away even though we did get rained on and snowed on. They weren't waterproof before I did this. No need for expensive shoes.

 

[RooFlyer]

Hope you don't mind me interrupting a bit @OZDUCK but I'd like to query you on Deutsche Bahn. I'll probably be in Germany and Austria in December this year, including doing a few Christmas markets. Planning on training, but your TR has me concerned.

What's your gut feel on the state of the train system in Germany? You caught them at an unlucky time when a bunch of issues coincided? The system is irretrievably stuffed for the foreseeable future? There were problems but you saw fixes under way?

I'll be mainly doing some longer journeys such as Cologne-Strasbourg, Strasbourg-Munch, Munich-Salzburg.

 

[Seat0B]

Hope you don't mind me interrupting a bit @OZDUCK but I'd like to query you on Deutsche Bahn. I'll probably be in Germany and Austria in December this year, including doing a few Christmas markets. Planning on training, but your TR has me concerned.

What's your gut feel on the state of the train system in Germany? You caught them at an unlucky time when a bunch of issues coincided? The system is irretrievably stuffed for the foreseeable future? There were problems but you saw fixes under way?

I'll be mainly doing some longer journeys such as Cologne-Strasbourg, Strasbourg-Munch, Munich-Salzburg.

I’m voting for irretrievably stuffed for the next period of time based on our dreadful experiences in December 2022. Seems like nothing changed to December 2023. Probably won’t change by December 2024. But of course @OZDUCK is the man on the ground at the moment.

 

[OZDUCK]

My wife absolutely agrees with Seat0B. However, yes we were probably a bit unlucky in suffering both a severe snow storm and a strike. I think the important thing is to try as much as possible to reduce the number of connections and especially shortish ones. If you do your bookings on the D Bahn site you can adjust the connection times to avoid some of the suggested 4 minute ones and also to avoid 'local' trains like the RE or RB ones which are usually slower and busier with no seat reservations. And our last two trains actually ran a couple of minutes ahead of schedule.

While you will probably get to your destination and usually within a few hours of the scheduled time I would certainly not be booking a long train trip on the day of your return flight. Nor would I rely on the train getting you to somewhere for an important appointment with only a few hours to spare. We went to Frankfurt the night before our flight from there. Unfortunately there is not much other choice of transport if you are not driving. Most of the Germans we talked to just shrugged their shoulders when we talked of our problems and said "that's D Bahn".All reports indicate that it will be several years before the system is back to what it was before it became a money making exercise for the directors and senior management.

I will give credit to the D Bahn site in that it was pretty good at giving updated information about the trains expected arrival - or cancellation. Sometimes we got 5 or 6 updates for a trip. And if a train is cancelled you can use any other train to the same destination on the same day even if it was initially a lot dearer. The English version is easy to subscribe to and also easy to use to book and rebook tickets. I assume that you are aware that a seat reservation is not included in most fares and for some of your proposed trips a seat reservation would be a good idea. . Between Munich and Salzburg some of the trips are done by Austrian Railways using their very nice, and reliable, RJX trains. You can still book these on the DB site and for us it was cheaper than using the Austrian one.

On most days the Munich/Salzburg legs on an IC, EC or RJX are pretty straightforward and often non stop with a number of trips a day. On the return leg the Bavarian Police will board the train to look at passports etc. But they never looked at ours - ethnic profiling was pretty obviously being used.

For Strasburg to Munich there are currently trips with just one longish, but safer, connection in Stuttgart. For the Cologne to Strasburg leg you can do it with only one connection to the TGV at Frankfurt or Mannheim. If you are offered a connection at Appenweier run away. That is the place where we had to do a cross country walk to get to the other primitive and freezing platform and then use something like a suburban railcar.

 

[OZDUCK]

One of the days we were in Salzburg we decided to take a trip to the WolfgangSee to take the cog railway up, or part of the way as it turned out, up the Schafbeg. This is the steepest cog railway in Austria.

Schafberg cog railway in St. Wolfgang - SchafbergBahn

SchafbergBahn since 1893 ✓ Up the Schafberg by cog railway in St. Wolfgang, Austria ✓ Opening hours ✓ Reach the summit in comfort » Learn more!

www.5schaetze.at

To get there we had to take a bus to St Gilgen and then a ferry across to St Wolfgang. The bus, No. 150, leaves from outside the HBF and takes about 44 minutes. A 'Day Ticket' costs €15.60. The trip takes just under 50 minutes. It is a normal longer distance public bus but the scenery before we got there was pretty fantastic.



Inside the bus. It stopped at the local villages along the way. The outside temperature was often -2C in the higher areas.



Some of the scenery.

 

[OZDUCK]

Our first transfer point- St Gilgen. You can see that the snow was fairly deep even down here.



It was about a 5 minute walk through the village to the ferry landing



The whole of Germany and Austria seemed to float on Glühwein when we were there.



Waiting for the ferry. It is that tiny dot in the distance. The ticket office only opened about 5 minutes before the ferry arrived. It seemed that the ferry company expected most people to book online but there was still a big queue.



A cable car ran up the hill/mountain behind the village





From the ferry



St Gilgen behind us

 

[OZDUCK]

The ferry trip







There was a large group of very noisy Italian students (?) on board



Ferienhort am Wolfgangsee - a 'youth' holiday camp







The steam powered paddle wheeler RMS Kaiser Franz Josef I - built in 1873. Used for excursions in the summer



St Wolfgang



The valley station of the cog railway. It was only opened in 2023

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks @OZDUCK and @Seat0B .All good, and noted. I'll always conservative in my travels and will space out any connections!! I'll have an open jaw air ticket, so will only be going one-way by rail south and then east, as far as Vienna.

I had a look at the Man in Seat 61 site and it will fill in any gaps, I'm sure (but nothing about current state of the network).

 

[OZDUCK]

Thanks @OZDUCK and @Seat0B .All good, and noted. I'll always conservative in my travels and will space out any connections!! I'll have an open jaw air ticket, so will only be going one-way by rail south and then east, as far as Vienna.

I had a look at the Man in Seat 61 site and it will fill in any gaps, I'm sure (but nothing about current state of the network).

One thing I forgot to mention is that you can travel to/from Salzburg using the Bayern Card. But this doesn't let you use the ICE, RJX etc trains only the 'local' ones.

Überblick

www.bayern-fahrplan.de

 

[Flashback]

One thing I forgot to mention is that you can travel to/from Salzburg using the Bayern Card. But this doesn't let you use the ICE, RJX etc trains only the 'local' ones.

Überblick

www.bayern-fahrplan.de

Was €25 when I did it back in 2010, I presume the price has gone up since then though. Definitely a handy ticket to use, though. The regional trains are great.

 

[OZDUCK]

Was €25 when I did it back in 2010, I presume the price has gone up since then though. Definitely a handy ticket to use, though. The regional trains are great.

It has barely risen as it is now €26 for one person and €34 for two so still very good value. Unfortunately the regional train was very overcrowded and with many cancellations when we travelled on one from Munich to Nuremberg on a Sunday morning. Every second one was cancelled and people were jammed into the vestibule. Many were heading off to the Nuremberg Christmas Market.

 

[OZDUCK]

The arrival jetty



Looking back across the lake from the station building



Information boards. The layout on the top station was somewhat idealised. We bought a joint ferry/train ticket and had to nominate how long we would spend at the top. Being winter there were a restricted number of trips.



One of the old steam engines now on display



Our diesel engine



The carriage



The inside



Heading up

With so few trains you have to be unlucky to have to wait for one to pass



We sat on the 'wrong' side of the carriage for the best views. A young Australian couple took this photo for us. We did the same at the top and they responded in kind. The carriage is at quite an angle and it is very awkward to stand up and take photos.





My wife took this video on the decent but it gives a good idea of the noise the train makes. There is more engine noise on the way up.

 

[OZDUCK]

In winter the train only goes about 80% of the way to the top - 4.2 km instead of 5.8km. It reaches a height of 1,364 metres compared to the summer station at 1,732 metres. I think that it is just too difficult to keep the upper track clear.

The engine and train at the top





This photo was taken about 70 minutes after the first couple and shows how quickly the light changes.



These give a good idea why the train stops where it did. You can see the depth of snow covering the tracks.



The track curves around to the right in summer.



The summer terminus. You can see two deer on the right.



A good view of the cogs



Looking downhill



We had great, if very cold, weather and the views were pretty amazing

 

[OZDUCK]

Out of sequence but I just found a short video of the climb up. Complete with a bit of Christmas music and German conversation

More from the top. I had trouble with my glasses. They are just normal 'transition' glasses but with the bright snow they were getting really, really dark.





You could roll a long way downhill here



The deer





Schafsbergspitze is the top of the mountain





Some areas were pretty soft



They had several of these little fire pits scattered around