The-PITTSTOP: 2023 Central Europe

We left Salzburg in more drizzling rain for our 11:00 am train ride to Hallstatt, a small village on Lake Hallstatt in the Eastern Austrian Alps. The weather started to clear and the train was a scenic ride into the foothills of the Alps - small villages at the base of small mountains with a little bit of snow still on a few mountaintops.

View from our train windows

Off the train, we followed the signed trail down a short embankment to the lake to catch a 10 minute ferry ride to the other side of the lake into town.

On the ferry

Approaching Hallstatt

The town is packed with visitors as it was Easter Monday, a popular holiday. Most of the visitors were day trippers, arriving from Munich, Salzburg or Vienna by train or bus. The town is composed of two streets, one down at the shore of the lake 1 kilometer long and another, shorter, one parallel up the mountainside just a little bit.

The main street is closed to vehicular traffic (except for locals), and we strolled the cobblestone streets through town to our hotel, built in the 1490's (no, I didn't reverse those numbers). We are on the third floor with a narrow spiral staircase and no elevator. Good thing we packed ridiculously light (we each had only one piece of carry on luggage). The room is fabulous, with a small deck overlooking the lake.

Hotel Breakfast Room

View from our balcony

One of the landings on the staircase

The "closet" in our room with hand painted doors. Our bath was in the room and modern.

Gorgeous antiques on the third floor where our room was

The key to our room was an old-fashioned skeleton key. They also gave us a key for the front door in case we were out late.

Incredibly beautiful ironwork for door handles and hinges.

Lin, outside the hotel entrance.

We stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of premade sandwiches to eat on the benches overlooking the lake and then rode a funicular up the mountain where there is a restaurant, UNESCO heritage Viewpoint and trails leading to an old salt mine that can be toured.

The funicular ride up the mountain with the end of town below

View of the lake and Hallstatt from the Viewpoint

Restaurant and viewing deck

Hallstatt, far below.

The salt mine up the mountain a bit from the restaurant

Part of the trail system to and from the Salt Mine

We returned to town and toured the Presbyterian church that was lakeside that was quite elegant outside, but very spartan inside. We then walked up the hill to the Catholic church which was very ornate.

The painted building in back is the Catholic Church

Manholes - written in English!

Barricades all up the mountain to protect the village from rocks and maybe avalances in winter

Heading up to the small street that parallels the main lakefront street

Waterfall behind the town

The Presbyterian Church, lakeside

Catholic church interior

The Catholic Church up the mountainside

The picturesque Catholic cemetery

The cemeteries throughout most of Europe work quite differently than in the United States. Because of the lack of land for cemeteries, people "rent" a grave for about 20 years, then the grave is reused. The remains may be removed to a catacomb or other facility, or the new internment is done over the old. The custom here in Hallstatt is really different, as they remove the skulls, paint them and store them in the catacomb where they can be viewed. The locals consider this honoring the deceased. Unfortunately (for me, because Lin wanted no part of this) the catacomb was closed the days we were there.

When we checked into the hotel the woman told us dinner was served at 7pm, so we wandered down to the hotel restaurant fifteen minutes after 7. Ooops, we had completely misunderstood her, because they stopped serving dinner at 7pm. She nicely provided us the names of three restaurants that would be open (all the daytrippers were gone, so most shops and cafes were closed). We went to the first one that was lakeside, but they were full up for the night...on to the next and we got an off-feeling about it - and left. We tried the third and just like Goldilocks, it was Just Right. We had just made it in time, because they did indicate that we would not be able to dawdle as they were closing within an hour. A traditional wood decorated room with servers in folk costumes served us a very good pasta dinner.

Interesting sculpture outside a private residence

Our weather had been good all day, but when we woke the next morning, it was pretty gray. We enjoyed a good European breakfast at the hotel and walked around town enjoying the relatively quiet before the daytrippers arrived later in the morning. Street scenes from Hallstatt:

The town Square

For an early lunch, we stopped at an outdoor cafe for coffee and hot apple strudel and watched the swans before our private car picked us up at the edge of town to drive us 3 hours northeast to Ceske Krumlov in the Czech Republic.