to Hallstatt we went. Having spent my last week in Salzburg finishing up with classes and preparing for final exams, I officially finished the class portion of my time in Salzburg on Thursday, leaving Friday free for final explorations in the area. To celebrate finishing classes and spend our last day in the Salzburg area out in nature and fresh air, Chelsey, Olivia, and I decided to go to Hallstatt, a mountain lakeside village a few hours outside of Salzburg. I had actually been to Hallstatt once before in 2010 with my parents, but we ended up there on the worst day possible (cloudy, raining, and 50 degrees), so my memories of the place weren't that great and I was ready to start over. When we left Salzburg relatively early in the morning, the day already promised to be beautiful, as it was warm and the sky was blue, a welcome change after the cool weather of the previous week or so. Beautiful days like this make me love the Austrian countryside even more, as the green grass in the meadows contrasts with the blue sky, and all of the scenery (mountains and lakes) just seems to be more vivid.
We definitely had the opportunity to see plenty of scenery, as we decided to take the Postbus (the long-distance public bus) to Bad Ischl, where we would change to the train to Hallstatt. While the bus ride was beautiful, as we wound through the mountains from Salzburg to St. Gilgen, and then to Bad Ischl, I soon learned an important truth of the Postbus: it is always late, which worried me, as we had only a short layover in Bad Ischl. As it turned out, we managed to get to Bad Ischl in time to run into the station and buy train tickets; we then rushed out onto the platform, where I saw a train heading toward the station. Having no idea which way the train was supposed to be coming from (and seeing that it was the correct time for our train to arrive), combined with the fact that the OBB (the Austrian train company) doesn't clearly label their trains, we logically decided to get on the train. Once on, we found seats and began talking to a nice American couple, who informed us that the train was going in the opposite direction from Hallstatt and that our tickets did not apply on the train; when the conductor came around, he was nice about our mistake, but made sure that we all got off at the next station, in Ebensee. There, we learned that we would have to wait 40 minutes for the next train back towards Hallstatt, so we headed to the Ebensee Billa (a grocery store) to get snacks. Finally, the train arrived (the correct train, this time) and, after a beautiful train ride, we arrived in Hallstatt. Or, to be more precise, we arrived at the Hallstatt train station, which is across the lake from the town of Hallstatt; thus, we had to take a ferry boat across the lake, which gave us a wonderful view of the town.
Once in town, we wandered around town for a while, enjoying the atmosphere and how cute Hallstatt is; seeing in on a sunny day, I realized how darn cute Hallstatt really is, with its old houses crowded along the lake and rising up into the hills above the lake. We walked down the length of the "old city" of Hallstatt, until we reached a spot that had a great view back towards Hallstatt, so we stopped and took pictures for a while. Heading back into town, we climbed up the stairs to the Catholic church, which is situated above Hallstatt, with a beautiful view of the town, the lake, and the mountains surrounding the lake. The Catholic church in Hallstatt is unique for its ossuary chapel, which holds hundreds of carefully cleaned and painted skulls; while this may sound unusual or weird, it had a logical beginning, as the limited space in the graveyard meant that bodies were only buried for 15-20 years before being exhumed, at which point the bones/skulls were cleaned, painted, and put in the ossuary chapel. After viewing the skull chapel, we went to the Hallstatt Museum, which tells the story of the town from prehistoric times to the modern day, with a heavy emphasis on salt mining, long the principle industry in Hallstatt.
After going through the museum, we had a bit of time left before we had to catch the ferry back to the train, so we wandered around town a bit more, got ice cream, and had coffee in a cafe. Catching the boat back to the train station, we made sure we were the first people off the boat and ran up the hill to the station, so that we could be first to use Hallstatt's one ticket machine (otherwise, we might have missed the train and had the Ebensee experience all over again). Heading back to Salzburg was much the same as getting to Hallstatt: train, then Postbus from Bad Ischl; this time around, though, the bus was packed on the way back to Salzburg, both with tourists going back to Salzburg and local Austrians heading into town for the Linzer Gasse festival that night. By the time we got back to Salzburg, there were so many people on the bus that I honestly don't think anyone else would have fit on it; luckily, I had a seat, so the ride was not nearly as unpleasant as it could have been.
Back in Salzburg, I had to fight my way through the Linzer Gasse festival to get to St. Sebastian; after fighting the crowds to get some food for dinner, I decided to stay in for the rest of the night, so I packed while I listened to the live music just below my window. The next morning, I was off to Munich and the last few days of my European adventure!
We definitely had the opportunity to see plenty of scenery, as we decided to take the Postbus (the long-distance public bus) to Bad Ischl, where we would change to the train to Hallstatt. While the bus ride was beautiful, as we wound through the mountains from Salzburg to St. Gilgen, and then to Bad Ischl, I soon learned an important truth of the Postbus: it is always late, which worried me, as we had only a short layover in Bad Ischl. As it turned out, we managed to get to Bad Ischl in time to run into the station and buy train tickets; we then rushed out onto the platform, where I saw a train heading toward the station. Having no idea which way the train was supposed to be coming from (and seeing that it was the correct time for our train to arrive), combined with the fact that the OBB (the Austrian train company) doesn't clearly label their trains, we logically decided to get on the train. Once on, we found seats and began talking to a nice American couple, who informed us that the train was going in the opposite direction from Hallstatt and that our tickets did not apply on the train; when the conductor came around, he was nice about our mistake, but made sure that we all got off at the next station, in Ebensee. There, we learned that we would have to wait 40 minutes for the next train back towards Hallstatt, so we headed to the Ebensee Billa (a grocery store) to get snacks. Finally, the train arrived (the correct train, this time) and, after a beautiful train ride, we arrived in Hallstatt. Or, to be more precise, we arrived at the Hallstatt train station, which is across the lake from the town of Hallstatt; thus, we had to take a ferry boat across the lake, which gave us a wonderful view of the town.
Once in town, we wandered around town for a while, enjoying the atmosphere and how cute Hallstatt is; seeing in on a sunny day, I realized how darn cute Hallstatt really is, with its old houses crowded along the lake and rising up into the hills above the lake. We walked down the length of the "old city" of Hallstatt, until we reached a spot that had a great view back towards Hallstatt, so we stopped and took pictures for a while. Heading back into town, we climbed up the stairs to the Catholic church, which is situated above Hallstatt, with a beautiful view of the town, the lake, and the mountains surrounding the lake. The Catholic church in Hallstatt is unique for its ossuary chapel, which holds hundreds of carefully cleaned and painted skulls; while this may sound unusual or weird, it had a logical beginning, as the limited space in the graveyard meant that bodies were only buried for 15-20 years before being exhumed, at which point the bones/skulls were cleaned, painted, and put in the ossuary chapel. After viewing the skull chapel, we went to the Hallstatt Museum, which tells the story of the town from prehistoric times to the modern day, with a heavy emphasis on salt mining, long the principle industry in Hallstatt.
After going through the museum, we had a bit of time left before we had to catch the ferry back to the train, so we wandered around town a bit more, got ice cream, and had coffee in a cafe. Catching the boat back to the train station, we made sure we were the first people off the boat and ran up the hill to the station, so that we could be first to use Hallstatt's one ticket machine (otherwise, we might have missed the train and had the Ebensee experience all over again). Heading back to Salzburg was much the same as getting to Hallstatt: train, then Postbus from Bad Ischl; this time around, though, the bus was packed on the way back to Salzburg, both with tourists going back to Salzburg and local Austrians heading into town for the Linzer Gasse festival that night. By the time we got back to Salzburg, there were so many people on the bus that I honestly don't think anyone else would have fit on it; luckily, I had a seat, so the ride was not nearly as unpleasant as it could have been.
Back in Salzburg, I had to fight my way through the Linzer Gasse festival to get to St. Sebastian; after fighting the crowds to get some food for dinner, I decided to stay in for the rest of the night, so I packed while I listened to the live music just below my window. The next morning, I was off to Munich and the last few days of my European adventure!