Back to the Salt Mines

Photos by Betsy

View from platform atop the mountain where the salt mine is located

We didn’t walk, but we still walked. The walking instructions required us to take a bus back to Bad Goisern (where we’ve been) and then walk back here to Hallstatt, but not on the brine pipeline, mainly on roads. Still, that’s not even the real reason we didn’t do the described walk. We could not bear to leave this place on a sunny day. Hallstatt is everything everyone says it is, and more. We know it helps that we are here in mid-September. In June, the crowds would be worse than Disney. But now, it’s glorious. We just couldn’t spend the day away when we know we will never pass this way again.

We did walk, however. We made steep climbs, walked up more steps than I cared to count and then walked and walked the promenade. We walked six miles, and that was the same as the walk required. Sounds like justification? Yes, but we’re doing our best to be good with it.

We went down to breakfast this morning and it was nothing like the last three hotels, but it was okay. I couldn’t figure out the coffee machine and ended up with some kind of hot chocolate macchiato blend that was awful, but I drank it since I somehow punched the buttons to make it.

First order of the day was to ride the funicular to the top of the mountain. Our hotel is located at the base of the mountain and we can see the cable car station from our window. We bought a roundtrip ticket for the ride and the salt mine tour, which was fairly pricey. The funicular trip was both scary and exciting as it climbed up the steepest track we’ve ever seen – and we’ve seen funicular tracts in Italy and Portugal.

At the top, we climbed a lot of steps and then crossed a suspended skywalk to get to the view point, a platform that jutted out from the mountainside. Looking out from that mountaintop over the lake was truly beautiful.

Next, we made our way to the salt mine tour. The Hallstatt Salt Mine is the world’s oldest, dating back at least 7,000 years, and has ancient tunnels leading deep into the mountainside.

Getting to the mine was a trek from the viewing platform area. It was a constant incline and then a whole bunch of stairs to get to the start of the tour. After all that, I felt much less guilty than Betsy did about not taking the hike. Once we got to the tour start, we were required to put on goofy uniforms of protective pants and jackets. I thought at first the uniforms were meant to protect our clothes from salt particles in the mine. Later, it became clear the uniforms were all about the two slides. They had padding meant to protect us from sliding too fast and from butt burns (I don’t know any other way to say that.)

About 50 of us donned those pseudo prison outfits and then marched single file into the mine.

Turns out we were captive in that dark, cold, boring place for about two hours. We saw videos, amateur light shows, way too many presentations about the geology we learned in high school, and more information about the mining of salt than anyone wants to know. This was a salt mine tour, so it never touched on the impact salt had on trade, the economy, politics or cooking. It was single focused on salt mining. Betsy is a much more patient person than I am. She kept a positive attitude throughout the tour even as I got a little salty about it after the first hour.

To be fair, there were some interesting aspects of the tour. The mine itself reminded me of coal mines I’ve seen in West Virginia and Kentucky where miners had to work in very narrow spaces using a pick tool to break apart the coal. Salt mining was done the same way for thousands of years. Also, women worked right alongside the men in the mines. They carried the salt out in baskets on their backs and on their heads, with each bag weighing 66 pounds.

There also was a lot of information about what may be the world’s oldest wooden staircase, which was discovered in the mine and then moved to Vienna to be studied for a decade or so and then moved back to the mine to be put on display. It dates back at least 3,000 years.

This robot guy was both fascinating and creepy. He told a story about the discovery of a body in the mine.

Thankfully, the tour also had three fun “rides” – two slides and mine train. The first slide took about two seconds and the second one maybe twice as long, but both were fun. The train ride was a lot longer and it was freezing cold.

After two hours, we were set free, blinking in the bright sun we had so missed underground. We took the funicular back down the hill and then went for a walk through Hallstatt and stopped at a beautiful lakeside restaurant for a late lunch.

We had a great table in the sun and ordered before paying much attention to the menu. After about 30 minutes we noticed that people who came in after us were already eating, but our food had not arrived. I asked the hostess about our food and she said that because I had ordered a whole grilled fish, it took longer. What?! She smiled and confirmed that I had indeed ordered a whole fish. Just last night for dinner I was careful not to have a whole fish on my plate. I never want to deal with the fish head, etc. The whole fish arrived and it wasn’t as big I feared and it was delicious. It was tedious, too. I had to be very careful of the bones, but I managed. The skin was grilled perfectly and it had a lemon garlic sauce that was fantastic.

While having our lunch, we watched little boats come and go from a nearby dock. We could tell that it was some kind of rental opportunity. We knew we wanted to rent a boat and be out on the lake in the sun. We made our way to the dock and rented an electric boat for an hour. It was fantastic. Tootling around in that boat by ourselves on the lake with the mountain views and looking at the village of Hallstatt from the water was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had.

After the boat ride, we explored more of the town and stopped in a few shops. We returned to our room for a while and dressed in warmer clothes and went back out to walk around. This little village really is magical. We finished the night with some pizza and then back to our hotel. Time to pack up and be ready to walk tomorrow and return to St. Wolfgang for the last leg of this part of our journey.

More scenes from our day