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Salzkammergut
Frau Theresia (the taxi lady who drove us from the station to our hostel on our first day in Salzburg) came by this morning to pick us up from our hostel for our day out to the regional areas around Salzburg. This region is known as Salzkammergut and features a collection of scenic towns and lakes.
Besides the gorgeous mountains and lakes, the common element that ties these towns together is salt. As the name of this region suggests ("salz"), these communities sprung up as salt mines were built around this region.
Unfortunately, the cloudless blue skies of yesterday were replaced today by their gloomy cousins. It goes to show that you can plan everything but for the weather on trips such as this. We were lucky to have the services of Frau Theresia today as it allowed us to travel quickly to the number of towns and lakes that we wanted to visit today.
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St. Gilgen
We made a brief stop enroute to St. Gilgen, at Fuschl am See to take some photos. The area was very picturesque but I didn't get any photos of any particular distinction here.
St. Gilgen is a very charming little town on the shores of Lake Wolfgang. We arrived here quite early and we almost had the whole place to ourselves until a busload of tourists arrived half an hour later.
1. Albert, me and Jimmy on the shores of Lake Wolfgang. 2. William and Jimmy doing what they do best - taking photos of wildlife. Like Salzburg, St. Gilgen has a rich association with Mozart. This was the birthplace of Mozart's mother, Anna Maria. Later on, Mozart's sister, Nannerl, relocated from Salzburg to live here.
2. Scenes of St. Gilgen 3. Imagine waking up to this scenery every morning ! 4. Statue of Mozart 5. According to Frau Theresia, this was the cafe operated by Mozart's sister, Nannerl (not sure about the veracity of this !)
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Lake Wolfgang
From St Gilgen, we followed the common tourist route by taking the ferry across Lake Wolfgang to St Wolfgang. It was quite a cheap trip - it was around EUR 5.0 from memory. Hsin Hsin and Stelia opted out of the ferry trip and they drove over to St Wolfgang with Frau Theresia.
6. On the ferry across Lake Wolfgang
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St Wolfgang
If I were to imagine what a "typical" Austrian alpine village would look like - it would look a lot like St Wolfgang. We didn't stay long here as we had a hectic pace to keep. We did spend about half an hour or so walking through this folksy place and exploring its cobblestone lanes and visiting cuckoo clock shops.
St Wolfgang also hosts the famous White Horse Inn. To be honest .. I'd never heard of the White Horse Inn before coming to St Wolfgang, but there's apparently a famous operetta that's set at White Horse Inn.
7. St. Wolfgang
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Hallstatt
At St Wolfgang, we met up again with Hsin Hsin, Stelia and Frau Theresia and we set off for Hallstatt. I think Salzkammergut must have a monopoly on picture postcard villages ! Hallstatt is another incredibly charming village that's built at the base of a mountain. It lays claim to the world's oldest salt mine. The people of Hallstatt had been mining the area since 1200BC !!
1. Hallstatt on the shores of Lake Hallstatt. Unfortunately, we could only admire the village from a distance as we didn't have time to actually walk through it. We had to make our way up the mountain to visit the salt mines. The ascent was via a cable car which took us about three-quarters of the way up. The rest of the journey was on foot.
3. Views on the walk up to the salt mine. The salt mine tour was very interesting and I totally recommend it. The Austrians are very good at presenting information in a very innovative and interesting way. At various points during our tour of the mines, projectors were used to project animations onto the walls and ceilings of the mines to illustrate the history of the mines.
But a key highlight of the mine tour would have to be the two wooden slides that connect the various floors of the mine. These slides are slightly different to the conventional "U" shaped slides one would find in the playgrounds. Instead, the slides are "W" shaped and you slide on the middle part of the "W". The first of the two slides was around 30 metres in length but you certainly do pick up speed on the way down. It was quite a thrill. But the second slide is about 60 metres in length and you're absolutley flying when you go down the second slide !! I think I clocked in the highest speed going down the slide (photo 4 below). I was clutching my camera on my belly as I went down the slide so that I can film the descent. If I look a bit worried in that photo, I certainly was !!
4. Salt mine tour. Towards the end of the tour, we exited the mine via a ride on the rail car in the mine through a very narrow tunnel (see photos above). Tall people beware as there isn't a lot of headroom to spare ! :) The salt mine tour was definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip.
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I could easily spend a whole week in Salzburg and Salzkammergut as there is so much to see. We had to cram everything into two and a half days due to our hectic schedule. This beautiful part of the world is definitely on my "coming back here again" list.