Germany and Austria Trip 2017 Part 4: Hallstatt

Hallstatt is a tiny town in Austria. It sits by a lake and is surrounded by mountains. I’m not kidding when I say it may be the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited. Here’s a picture of the town from Wikipedia.

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To get to Hallstatt, you take a two-hour train ride from Salzburg and then a ferry across a gorgeous lake. While there, we walked around the town, saw a Catholic ceremony, and went to a 7,000-year-old salt mine. Salt has been mined in Hallstatt since the Iron Age. We took a tour of the mine, slid down mining slides, learned about its ancient history, and bought a ton of salt in the gift shop. I don’t have pictures because it was underground, but the salt mine was one of the highlights of the trip. Maybe the highlight.

Pictures of Hallstatt:

boat

Boat on the pristine water.

view from above

Hiking in the Alps, looking down at the lake.

The town:

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town1

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There were lots of tourists, some annoying, some adorable:

tourists

Another boat on the pristine water:

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The salt mine in the Alps.

mountains

This was the Catholic ceremony, which was in German, so I didn’t understand what it was about. This little girl looks exactly like a Christmas ornament I had a child:

choir