Exploring the town of Werfen

We awoke to a rainy morning and thought it would be a great day to take a day trip on the train and visit the town of Werfen (which is the town where Ben has been doing his trial guide work ). He has been marvelling at the castle while going down the river and wanted to check out the cute town.

The train station is only a 15 minute walk from our place and was hustle and bustle as soon as we got there. It is huge and has 9 platforms and a range of shops. It’s good to know the shops here are open on a Sunday too!

We purchased our tickets and headed on up to platform 9 and 3/4s - (9c) and boarded our train, and right after we chose our seats the train took off. I was a bit shocked by it all and wasn’t even sure we were on the right train but Ben as always was as cool as a cucumber and re assured me we were not on a runaway train. The conductor came to check our tickets and only 45 mins later we were in Werfen.

Werfen is such an adorable little town. As soon as you get off the train you walk directly up to the Salzach river and a cute weir (that may or may not have been a power station) but I kept calling it a weir. Then there was a sign showing a walk through the forest “as was filmed for the sound of music”. Well… memories of singing all those songs came flooding back to me and I wanted to rip up my drapes, wind them around my body and go skipping hand in hand up the mountain. But I’m saving that for another day as firstly I didn’t have any drapes with me lol and it was already mid afternoon plus the kids weren’t with us and I had thoughts of Ben and I getting lost in the Alps and the kids being left all alone so we’re going to come back and bring them with us and explore the 45 minute walk then.

We decided to walk up to the castle and see if it was worth exploring. It was a fun 20 minute steep walk first through the town past the ever more many popular choices of Italian restaurants and then up to the castle.

The Taxidermis display of animals

The owl was very lifelike

It continues to amaze me the towering size of these castles and this one (although not as big as Salzburg castle) is still very impressive with cute touches like flags and turrets, gold trimming and it all whisks you back in time.

Again we decided not to go into the castle (as it was past second breakfast time) but we will return to explore at another date as you really need a full day to just meander through all the rooms and take it all in.

We wandered back down the hill into the town and found a traditional Austrian restaurant for lunch called Gashof Sur Stiege (or at least I think it was called that).

Initially we couldn’t even work out which door was the door to the restaurant and casually surprised the chefs in the kitchen. Once we worked out it was the little door that looked like it was locked and you needed a key to open it  (of course it was) we opened and went in.

It was very inviting with the cutest booth seats and dimmed lighting, mint green velvet chairs and drink stations but every inside table was full so we dined in the garden area which was just as pretty with fairy lights and an impressive tree in the middle of the courtyard.

We weren’t sure if we had entered a hatted restaurant or a private function! But the menu was a bound leather journal and every item was described in precise detail in German.

Ben suggested to try 2 meal selections we had never heard of called Tafelspatz and Pomgaue and they were both spectacular. Such delicious sauces, tender meat and all paired with condiments of apple sauce, sour cream chives and what I would call pea puree which I happily gave to Ben to enjoy.

I have vouched now to try the most unusual thing on the menu when we go to Austrian restaurants as that lunch was a real flavour sensation.

After lunch we headed back onto the train had a kipper on the way and then received a call from the kids wanting a “sweet treat” so we searched for something familiar to home and got them a snickers bar and hubba bubba and they were very happy.

This was the first time we left the kids all day (normally it’s only for a couple of hours) and they were so bored and have now agreed that Saturday is family day and they are going to come out with us every Saturday and Sunday’s - day of rest - they can decide what they what to do.

I’m really happy about that because I didn’t want to have to force them to explore so I have been letting them make up their own minds but now they know the other side of missing out and being bored all day is no fun.