Austria

June 17 - July 14, 2009

Monday, June 22 - Schwaz

5 more days of rain thanks to a giant cloud that came up from the Mediterranean and keeps churning over Austria. sigh! Given the forecast, today's plan was to head to Schwaz to go check out the silver mine. We figured it wouldn't matter if it was raining if we were inside the mine anyway!

We took the bus from Westendorf to Woergl and from there the train to Schwaz. Since it wasn't raining when we arrived, we headed across town to the start of 2 multi caches. Both caches lead us along the Wolfgangsweg, a path that went past a "Forest Kindergarten", past a children's playground, and up to a chapel and then the Silver Woods.

By the time we found the caches and made our way back down to the silver mine, it was already 2pm so we decided to have lunch. Then it was time for the tour. We were happy we had waited because the big afternoon crowds were done and there were only about 15 of us on the tour. We donned rain coats and hard hats and followed our guide across the street to the mine entrance. A little barrow train brought us about 800 m into the mountain where we got a guided tour about the mine and what life was like for the miners, including the children who worked in the mine 500 years ago.

After the mine tour we started to head back to the train station but realizing that we wouldn't make it in time for the next train we took a detour to visit the old part of town and the gothic church. Then we took the train and the last bus back to Westendorf. Rubby took the kids back to the hotel right away to feed them supper and put them to bed.

• The Silver Forest of Schwaz
  
  
• The silver mine and historic Schwaz