Eisriesenwelt Werfen

The Eisriesenwelt in the Tennengebirge near Werfen is, at around 42 km long, the largest ice cave in the world. Visitors explore the impressively ice-covered front section with carbide lamps on a guided tour. The arrival on Austria's steepest cable car and the path through the mountains are an experience in themselves.

Highlights

• Largest ice cave in the world (around 42 km)
• Guided tour through ice-covered halls
• Arrival on a very steep cable car
• Spectacular setting high above the Salzach valley

Good to know

Practical info

Background & History

High above the Salzach valley, in the rock massif of the Tennengebirge, hides the Eisriesenwelt, whose name is aptly translated as World of the Ice Giants. It is the largest ice cave on earth, a widely branching system whose front sections are filled with mighty ice formations. These arise through an interplay of air currents and temperatures: in winter cold air draws in and cools the rock, in spring meltwater seeps in and freezes into columns, curtains and sculptures, which in the light of the carbide lamps appear as if from another world.

For a long time the cave was decried among the valley dwellers as an entrance to the underworld, a place one avoided and surrounded with legends. Only towards the end of the 19th century was it systematically explored and made accessible to visitors. Above the cave entrance watches Hohenwerfen Castle, a defensible fortress from the 11th century, in which today birds-of-prey displays recall the old art of falconry. The way from Werfen up to the cave entrance is itself already an experience, for it leads over dizzying paths up along steep rock walls, before a cable car overcomes the last metres of altitude. Thus in Werfen the experience of an icy depth combines with the view of a castle that has watched over the Salzach valley for almost a thousand years, and with the special atmosphere of a cave in which wintry cold prevails even in high summer.