25 km south of Salzburg, set high above the town of Werfen in the Tennengebirge mountains you will find the entrance to Eisriesenwelt the world’s largest ice cave. Known as a dynamic cave, meaning that lower entrances are connected with higher openings not allowing air draughts to occur thus maintaining the internal temperature. In the summer as the ice melts, water seeps through the cracks into the colder chambers and freezes again creating forever changing ice formations. It is so cold that when they open the entrance in summer, the natural exchange of hot and cold air creates gusts of wind that can reach 90 kmph.
A truly magnificent sight to behold but that comes at a price…to get to the entrance you have to brave two 20 minutes steep hikes, a cable car to the higher platform and a whopping 1400 steps inside the various chambers of the first kilometres of the 42 km cave.
