I spent the Autumn 1998 in Vienna, Austria, working at the local Volvo Truck office there. As this would be a very lonely period, I decided to see as much of the country as I could. And since the castle of Hohenwerfen – where ”Where Eagles Dare” was filmed – is situated just south of Salzburg, I decided to go there on one of my sightseeing-trips…
It was a beautiful Saturday in October 1998. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and you could feel Autumn was around the corner. What a perfect day I’d picked for this adventure!
I sat down in the train, I felt I’d just travelled some 50 years back in time! The green and brown coupé with seats I’d only seen in old movies really opened up my mind – this is how it was by the time the action in ”Where Eagles Dare” took place! During the 30 minutes I sat on the train, I got used to the era – the ancient villages and alpes passing by the window proved I really had travelled back in time. But I sat like on needles. My mind hadn’t gotten used to the Bavarian accents yet, and I was afraid to miss the station, when called up in the speakers. But, asking the girls in front of me if I’d heard it right, they confirmed that the next station would be it: Werfen. Hometown of many a myth and legend – and of my all-time favorite movie ”Where Eagles Dare”.
Arriving in Werfen
Getting off the train at the Werfen railway station, I felt like a pilgrim on his way to Mekka. But a lonely pilgrim – I found it strange that I was the only one to stop here – this place should be packed with tourists, I’d imagined – but there weren’t a single sould to be seen! Still with my mind in the train, where I’d been talking to three fairly attractive Austrian girls, I walked a few steps to get past the train. When I’d passed, I lifted my head and breathed in the wonderful fresh air – the air of mountains and woods and AUTUMN at its best. When I opened my eyes again, I stood face to face with the magnificent and all-genuine Schloß Adler! Or Burg Hohenwerfen, as its real name is. All the old memories of this movie came back to me in an instant, and I didn’t awake from the spell untill my neck began to ache. Now I knew what Smith and Schaffer felt when they first encountered the castle from the ”woods due west of castle” – it is really a mighty sight! I just had to pick up my camera and save this moment for posterity.
I crossed the railroad and began to walk in the direction of the few houses I saw straight ahead of me, not realizing untill later that I’d just walked the bridge where our heroes almost get caught in an ID-controll in the movie. When I reached the houses, I saw there was some kind of a bus station not far away. Hopefully there would be a site map, where I could find my ’Gasthof’ (= Inn). And I did. But I didn’t understand where it would be, so I had to ask for the way to it. ”Over that bridge (pointing), and up the hill, it’s that house you see right up there”, a friendly citizen told me. Wow, I thought. That’s quite a walk. Just then, I spotted a bus crawling up the slope. I was surprised it didn’t tip backwards, that steep was it!
Tough slopes
Well up at the Zaisman Gasthof, I was nearly bathing in sweat. I felt like a mountain climber without equipment, and with two heavy suitcases to carry. Which, in fact, I was. I had to sit down and relax for a few minutes before I could ask the mistress for my room.
When I came to the room, I glanced at my watch. It was twenty minutes to two. I felt a bit stressed. I knew the round trips at the castle went every hour, and three o’clock there would be a falcon-show. So the trip two o’clock would probably be my only chance. I wolfed down the (at this point very sweaty) cheese and ham baguette I’d bought in the morning, together with a Sprite supercan. Then I had to leave immediately. I ran down the 200 m slope – not as much because of the short time-range as the fact that this was the only way to get down if I didn’t want to roll. I could feel my lunch swelling in my stomach, but there was no way to stop running before I came down to the bridge. Now I had to search for the way up to the castle.
What I found wasn’t very encouraging: a very steep and narrow path through the forrest turned out to be the way up. It was tough, but after a while I reached a paved road, leading the last 50 metres up to the entrance (all in all, I think it was about 400 metres of walk). It made the path in the forrest look like… well, a walk in the park! I experienced it was so steep I could almost lick the ground without touching it with my hands (which, of course, was pure imagination – but the angle of inclination was surely about 20 degrees)! I didn’t make it to the entrance. I had to take a break in my climbing on a very strategically well-placed park bench, a few metres from the entrance. I probably sat there for 10 minutes, just breathing.
At the ”Castle of Eagles”
When I had gathered my breath, I realized I was too late for the guided round trip. But I was lucky, there would be one last after the falcon-show! So I could start off with about 45 minutes of my own. I picked out my camera, and got to work.
Having photo-graphed half the place, it was time for the falcon-show. Which turned out to be much more comprehensive than I’d expected. Starting off with a couple of smaller falcons, the falconeers (dressed in medieval hunting clothes) presented bigger and bigger birds of prey – and finishing off with eagles and even vultures, ranging up to one and a half meter between the wing-tips! It was really an experience – we had these birds flying just above our heads and landing on the fist of a falconeer in the middle of the crowd! And the falconeers made a lot of tricks with them too, like throwing up pieces of meat in the air, which the falcons could dive after. When the show was over I photographed the rest of the place, and went to join the guided tour.
What can I say about the tour? Well, it was interesting above the expected. I got to see a few places I’d missed (not the golden hall in the movie, though!), and a girl dressed in medieval clothes told the story of the castle in German (see the Hohenwerfen history article!). After that I went to the souvenir-shop (it was closed, but they were kind and let me in anyway) and bought a nice T-shirt and a pin. This wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted, but they didn’t have much else that interested me. Then it was time for me to leave, and I decided to find the place where our heroes jump into the lake from the cable-car. But when I reached the estimated point, it was too dark to take photos – so I took a few photos of the castle at night (which became too dark) on my way back to the Gasthof instead. Then I had dinner, and went to sleep early – I was exhausted!
Spooky morning
In the morning I woke up to my alarm-clock ringing – I had to get up early so I could also see the city of Salzburg before going back to Vienna. I was quite astonished, facing the cows just outside my window when I rose from my bed! It was a very special feeling, being inside – and yet so close to such large animals! I also noted it was foggy outside, almost a bit spooky.
Downstairs, I had breakfast. I asked if I could sit down by the next table, and got around to chat with three Austrians and a woman from New Zeeland. They had never guessed this was the castle in ”Where Eagles Dare”, so I told them about it, and how the movie was recorded in these areas. After breakfast, I paid my bill, was wished a pleasant journey by the mistress and my breakfast company, and left. I took a few last pictures of the castle in the fog, and took the next train back to Salzburg and the 20th century.
