Trip: Austria - Day 5 Hallstatt, Day 6 Salzburg
Day 5: Hallstatt & Dachstein
Ah, one of the most looked forward-to day! It was a super early morning. We woke up at 5am to take the bus over to Hallstatt, which involved a couple of bus changes. What we were mystified about was, there were actually a couple of tourists getting on the bus at weird middle-of-nowhere bus stops. Also kids going to school. Anyway, after we reached Hallstatt, we went further to Dachstein Obertraun (sp?). Giant Ice Caves, Mammoth Caves, and what was supposed to be the Five-Fingers lookout, which didn't happen for us because of bad weather. (Look at the top photo of the ticket). I wanted to go to THAT!.
So the lady at the ticket counter for the cable car already said the weather was expected to be bad all day. So we only got tickets up to the first cable car stop (Five Fingers Lookout is at second cable car stop). As we walked up the mountain, we thought maybe the sky would clear up later in the day.
It was a long-long way up.
The ice caves were interesting.
Fake bear had some story thing going on.
These are all nice and dandy now, but I wonder back then when it was just found out, without all these lighting, what would this have looked like?
Lastly we went over a bridge where they played the intro part of the Phantom Of The Opera (what the heck?). There was a family of... maybe Thai or Vietnamese, they kept wanting to stay in the front. Which is actually fine. But they wanted to stay in the front, but one of the guy wanted to make a video of the family, so he stepped back, blocking the way for everyone behind, my friend and I got a little miffed and just walked over him and he had to come running and try to squeeze back with his family. Geez. Read the room.
When we came out, it was actually drizzling. So it was fated that, I wasn't going to the Five Fingers on this day.
Well, there may be no Five Fingers, but we made our own Ten Fingers LOL. We decided to skip the Mammoth cave and go back to Hallstatt.
It's nice and quaint, and it's charming, but I don't get all the hype about it in social media.
We went up the other mountain in Hallstatt to get to the Salt Mines.
The sky cleared up! We should have stayed up! But then we would have not have enough time for the Salt Mines.
Had to get dressed up for that.
Darkness and darkness and salt and whatnot.
There was some other light-works show here, which again, pretty interesting. We also got to slide down the mine slide twice. I took videos, so no photos.
So this staircase is.... so very old and was just found in recent years. They wanted to send it to some lab, but on the way they found out it was decaying out of the atmosphere in the salt mines, so they sent this back. It was the salt and dryness in these caves that helped keep the stairs in such good condition.
We got to sit on the choo-choo-mine-train to leave LOL. Again, a video, so no photos.
Baa baa black sheep.....
The fog was coming back!
Back down we started to explore the town properly.
Yes, very charming and pretty. But I still don't see spending 3 days here (as many of my friends and my travel partner's friends keep saying)
It was a pretty long walk to the ferry pier.
Kitty cat!
We managed to get on the last ferry across the lake, to the train station and took the train back to Salzburg. There was a bit of a wait mid-way as some connection was running late. I think in the end we just had dinner at a kebab place next to the hotel, which was actually surprisingly good.
Day 6: Salzburg
Ah, it was such a beautiful day on this day. Had I known it, I would have put THIS day for Hallstatt! But hindsight is 20/20.
We went to one... palace or museum or stateroom or something.... anyway, what we noticed was, there was virtually NOBODY in there. In our experience in Germany, Czech, Spain, when we visited these palace rooms type of place, they are always packed with people and we were essentially just walking one behind another and being led the way. Not trying to diss here in Austria, but it was very refreshing and we got to properly see the rooms.
And the place was essentially endless... we kept walking and walking and it was never ending. Then we walked through a chapel or church, and there was organ music going on. Not sure who watches Anime here, but the "standard" Anime-school-ding-ding bells? Yes, that! Here, I found a youtube LOL. We stood around to listen to the whole piece. We were actually next to the chapel, so we weren't in the chapel (paid area) but in a state room that had a gallery that was next to the chapel.
We went up the mountain.
Just my daily job of bull wrangling.
Realllllyyyyyy beautiful day!
Cemetery.
Cute!
We got a 2-day city pass thing, so we were trying to squeeze as many paid visits as possible.
I think we had like only 10 minutes to make a quick tour in this museum.
Then we walked around until dark.
I think on this day we ended the day at an Asian restaurant. We needed a break from the heavy schnitzel and stews. We had quite some fun. The order-taker (boss?) of the restaurant was probably Malaysian. He spoke German to the locals, English to the tourists, Mandarin to some tourists, and then he heard my friend and I discussing what to order in Cantonese, so he spoke to us in Cantonese. The staff (mandarin speakers) were amazed that I spoke mandarn too.
Ah, one of the most looked forward-to day! It was a super early morning. We woke up at 5am to take the bus over to Hallstatt, which involved a couple of bus changes. What we were mystified about was, there were actually a couple of tourists getting on the bus at weird middle-of-nowhere bus stops. Also kids going to school. Anyway, after we reached Hallstatt, we went further to Dachstein Obertraun (sp?). Giant Ice Caves, Mammoth Caves, and what was supposed to be the Five-Fingers lookout, which didn't happen for us because of bad weather. (Look at the top photo of the ticket). I wanted to go to THAT!.
So the lady at the ticket counter for the cable car already said the weather was expected to be bad all day. So we only got tickets up to the first cable car stop (Five Fingers Lookout is at second cable car stop). As we walked up the mountain, we thought maybe the sky would clear up later in the day.
It was a long-long way up.
The ice caves were interesting.
Fake bear had some story thing going on.
These are all nice and dandy now, but I wonder back then when it was just found out, without all these lighting, what would this have looked like?
Lastly we went over a bridge where they played the intro part of the Phantom Of The Opera (what the heck?). There was a family of... maybe Thai or Vietnamese, they kept wanting to stay in the front. Which is actually fine. But they wanted to stay in the front, but one of the guy wanted to make a video of the family, so he stepped back, blocking the way for everyone behind, my friend and I got a little miffed and just walked over him and he had to come running and try to squeeze back with his family. Geez. Read the room.
When we came out, it was actually drizzling. So it was fated that, I wasn't going to the Five Fingers on this day.
Well, there may be no Five Fingers, but we made our own Ten Fingers LOL. We decided to skip the Mammoth cave and go back to Hallstatt.
It's nice and quaint, and it's charming, but I don't get all the hype about it in social media.
We went up the other mountain in Hallstatt to get to the Salt Mines.
The sky cleared up! We should have stayed up! But then we would have not have enough time for the Salt Mines.
Had to get dressed up for that.
Darkness and darkness and salt and whatnot.
There was some other light-works show here, which again, pretty interesting. We also got to slide down the mine slide twice. I took videos, so no photos.
So this staircase is.... so very old and was just found in recent years. They wanted to send it to some lab, but on the way they found out it was decaying out of the atmosphere in the salt mines, so they sent this back. It was the salt and dryness in these caves that helped keep the stairs in such good condition.
We got to sit on the choo-choo-mine-train to leave LOL. Again, a video, so no photos.
Baa baa black sheep.....
The fog was coming back!
Back down we started to explore the town properly.
Yes, very charming and pretty. But I still don't see spending 3 days here (as many of my friends and my travel partner's friends keep saying)
It was a pretty long walk to the ferry pier.
Kitty cat!
We managed to get on the last ferry across the lake, to the train station and took the train back to Salzburg. There was a bit of a wait mid-way as some connection was running late. I think in the end we just had dinner at a kebab place next to the hotel, which was actually surprisingly good.
Day 6: Salzburg
Ah, it was such a beautiful day on this day. Had I known it, I would have put THIS day for Hallstatt! But hindsight is 20/20.
We went to one... palace or museum or stateroom or something.... anyway, what we noticed was, there was virtually NOBODY in there. In our experience in Germany, Czech, Spain, when we visited these palace rooms type of place, they are always packed with people and we were essentially just walking one behind another and being led the way. Not trying to diss here in Austria, but it was very refreshing and we got to properly see the rooms.
And the place was essentially endless... we kept walking and walking and it was never ending. Then we walked through a chapel or church, and there was organ music going on. Not sure who watches Anime here, but the "standard" Anime-school-ding-ding bells? Yes, that! Here, I found a youtube LOL. We stood around to listen to the whole piece. We were actually next to the chapel, so we weren't in the chapel (paid area) but in a state room that had a gallery that was next to the chapel.
Click to viewWe went up the mountain.
Just my daily job of bull wrangling.
Realllllyyyyyy beautiful day!
Cemetery.
Cute!
We got a 2-day city pass thing, so we were trying to squeeze as many paid visits as possible.
I think we had like only 10 minutes to make a quick tour in this museum.
Then we walked around until dark.
I think on this day we ended the day at an Asian restaurant. We needed a break from the heavy schnitzel and stews. We had quite some fun. The order-taker (boss?) of the restaurant was probably Malaysian. He spoke German to the locals, English to the tourists, Mandarin to some tourists, and then he heard my friend and I discussing what to order in Cantonese, so he spoke to us in Cantonese. The staff (mandarin speakers) were amazed that I spoke mandarn too.