Hallstatt: Salt Mine

After Salzburg, we took a train to Hallstatt for a day trip. The train ride takes about 3 hours and the journey was pretty as along the way, we saw an empty vast of lush green land with some mountains in the backdrop and a group of small cottages here and there. But if you look out the window for 1 hour, it became quite boring.

An emo pic of brother Alwin. Haha.

Soon after, as we were arriving our destination, we saw a beautiful blue lake that compliments very well with the clear blue sky.

Hallstatt is a small town situated by a lake. The salt mines which are 300 metres up the mountains attracted the earliest settlers thousands of years ago. These mines are the oldest salt mines in the world.

From the train station, we had to get over the other side by a ferry that comes every 30 minutes or so.

Walking towards the jetty

With Alex's friend, Jeremy's family in the boat. We bumped into them in the same train from Salzburg to Hallstatt

As we approached the bank on the other side, the town started to unveil itself and it looked so beautiful! There were little cute cottages built on the slopes of the mountains and they had pretty flowers in the window sill, just like in Amsterdam! The reflection on the lake made the photos look even nicer. Hehe.

♠

Fish in the lake!

Isn't it nice to be eating your lunch by a lake under a shady tree?

You know when they say that the grass is greener on the other side, I sometimes believe it's really true! The flowers in Hallstatt seem to look fuller and more colourful than the ones in Perth. I think it must be the good green hands on those garderners, I suppose. Or the salt from the beneath the ground? Hmm.

There were many stalls selling crafts in the town area and I was looking for a nice hat to buy couldn't find any suitable. :(

Since the salt mines were located up in the mountains, we had to take a cable car up (or else it will take days for us to hike up to the top since it was so hot and sunny that morning). It was quite a long walk from the town area to the cable car station which was near the mountains.

Brother Alex leading the way (aimlessly). Haha.

Getting there! You can see the tracks in the backdrop

Salzwelten means Salt World

The curved tracks on the upper top allows two cable cars to move on opposite directions so timing must be right but I think it is all programmed already.

Inside the cable car, we were amazed to see such a magnificient backdrop of Hallstatt of the ground from the eagle's eye.

Ascending the Salt Mountain, away from Hallstatt town

Nice wallpaper of the lake surrounding Hallstatt

We arrived the top at 838 metres.

You thought that once we were at the top, we were already at the entrance of the Salt Mine, but no, we were wrong. It was still a long way to hike up the mountain so luckily our cable car trip reduced our hiking time by half. LOL. I expected that being up on the top, it would be much cooler, but the sun was still high up and shining intensely so I was feeling quite agitated already.

Once we arrived the entrance of the Salt Mine, we had to wait for the next touring time which was in 15 minutes. We were told that inside the mine, the temperature could drop to sub-zero and we were each given a suit to wear. I didn't quite understand what the suit was for because it was just normal clothing, except that it looked so hideous. The material was so thin so it couldn't protect us from the cold temperature inside and there wasn't any protective gears, should the mines collapse. I think it was to protect from getting our own clothes dirty, I suppose. All of us looked like prisoners wearing the suit over our clothes.

Our tour was supposed to be a dual language tour - German and English. No offense, but I think the tour guide could just skip speaking English because none of us could understand her - even the other foreign tourists. Her accent was so strong and her English command was quite poor that the tourists who could understand her German, translated to us in English. Haha. So we felt a bit lost most of the times.

Entering the Salt Mines

We had to walk in a file deep into the mine in a small narrow tunnel

It was recorded in the history that in 1734, a man was found buried in salt that preserved his body very well. Unfortunately, the miners brought his body out for post mortem and the body started to rot. The body has been buried since in an unknown location.

Since I couldn't really understand the tour guide (which was a pity), the only thing I enjoyed inside the Salt Mine was being able to sit on a slide. Hahaha. There were 2 slides inside the mine; the latter was much longer and steeper and it has a speed camera which takes the photo of the person sliding down and calculate the speed. I was the first to slide down the second slide because I wanted to record videos of my family members sliding down after me. Honestly, I was a bit afraid because I could see that the end was so far down and deep. But funnily, when I slid down, I enjoyed myself and kept on laughing on the way down that my family told me that the people with them, waiting to slide down, also laughed at me. Hahaha. Embarrassing! :P

If you are my friend on Facebook, you could see that my profile picture was me sitting on the slide in Hallstatt Salt Mine. Hehe. I was the only one who purchased the picture because I think I looked like a pretty cute baby enjoying myself. LOL. Well, obviously mine was the slowest speed compared to my family members'. Even mum was faster than me! Haha.

On the way out, instead of walking, we got to sit a modified train with no roofs that took us out to the end of the tunnel where the sun was shining so brightly. It was quite fun but dangerous so we had to duck our heads in case we hit the roof of the tunnel.

On the modified train, outside the tunnel

It was quite an exciting trip, I must say. We were each given a bottle of salt from the Hallstatt Salt Mine as a souvenir. After that, we boarded the train and head back to Salzburg where the next day we flew back to London to attend Alex's graduation.

This is the last post of my Europe trip and it was indeed a good holiday that I needed so much after a stressful time at work. :) It was also nice to spend time with my two brothers who are now in UK and US. I wonder when I can meet them again.