Salzburg
With only one night in Salzburg and a long drive ahead, with a stop, we decided to use the Tollways to get from Vienna to Salzburg. That meant buying a Vignette for 8.50 Euros, giving us 10 days of Tollway driving - pity we only need two.
The stop we made was at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, which as you can image was quite sad. The memorial was well done with a mixture of original and restored buildings and a museum area. We had audio guides to take us through some barracks and listen to stories from a few survivors. We also saw the gas chambers and crematoriums along with original photos from when the camp was active and from when the American's came to free the prisoners. All up around 93,000 prisoners were killed there.
Salzburg has a quaint little village feel to it. The 'Old Town' area is of course very old with some buildings dating back to the 7th and 8th centuries. In the main shopping street all the shops have elaborate signs identifying them.
We visited a museum in the building where Mozart was born. It was quite interesting even though neither of us are really into classical music. Speaking of music, The Sound of Music was filmed around here as well and there are plenty of tours to those sights. We had less than 24 hours in Salzburg though so didn't go to any of those.
We went up a lift that is partly built into the side of a cliff. The view from the top was great, giving an awesome view of most of Salzburg.
We then wandered through the city looking at the buildings, people and shops. As usual there were many beautiful churches and buildings and one church had a gorgeous courtyard cemetery. It was tucked away in a small corner of the city and we stumbled across it.
Next was a funicular trip up to the fortress that over looks the town. Again the views from up here were incredible. We were blessed with warm weather for the day as it could have been quite cold up here I'm sure. The fortress itself was interesting and it too dates from 1077.
Monday we caught a local bus out to a Cable Car and up to Untersburg, a series of mountain peaks. The Cable Car takes you up to 1776 metres, we then walked about a kilometre for another 100 metres of height. We were prepared for it to be fairly cool up here but again the skies were relatively clear and we were warm enough not to need our windcheaters.
Time to leave Salzburg and we had a 1 hour drive through some beautiful villages and countryside to Hallstatt, a small village where they mine salt - and have been for 7000 years! We wanted to go to the Salt Mine and decided to go there before checking into our hotel, having arrived in town around 2:00pm. The mine included a funicular trip up part of the mountain, some walking along a historical trail, then a tour of the mine itself. Once inside the mine we were told how they had found tools from the bronze age and in this way were able to date the mining of the salt. We also went down two long slides, including the longest in Austria of 64 metres. They were a bit of fun but overall we walked out wishing for a bit more detail of the mining process and history.
Hallstatt itself was more beautiful than we expected. It is on the shores of a lake with the mountains behind, virtually no traffic and lovely houses - very peaceful. The weather was still mild and we enjoyed a very nice stroll through the village, again just admiring the buildings and surroundings.
Dinner was at an outdoor restaurant on the shores of the lake and was one of the best meals we have had to date, Roast Duck (Trace) and Roast Pork (me), but both beautifully done. We will do some more exploring tomorrow morning before leaving for Slovenia
The stop we made was at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, which as you can image was quite sad. The memorial was well done with a mixture of original and restored buildings and a museum area. We had audio guides to take us through some barracks and listen to stories from a few survivors. We also saw the gas chambers and crematoriums along with original photos from when the camp was active and from when the American's came to free the prisoners. All up around 93,000 prisoners were killed there.
Salzburg has a quaint little village feel to it. The 'Old Town' area is of course very old with some buildings dating back to the 7th and 8th centuries. In the main shopping street all the shops have elaborate signs identifying them.
We visited a museum in the building where Mozart was born. It was quite interesting even though neither of us are really into classical music. Speaking of music, The Sound of Music was filmed around here as well and there are plenty of tours to those sights. We had less than 24 hours in Salzburg though so didn't go to any of those.
We went up a lift that is partly built into the side of a cliff. The view from the top was great, giving an awesome view of most of Salzburg.
We then wandered through the city looking at the buildings, people and shops. As usual there were many beautiful churches and buildings and one church had a gorgeous courtyard cemetery. It was tucked away in a small corner of the city and we stumbled across it.
Next was a funicular trip up to the fortress that over looks the town. Again the views from up here were incredible. We were blessed with warm weather for the day as it could have been quite cold up here I'm sure. The fortress itself was interesting and it too dates from 1077.
Monday we caught a local bus out to a Cable Car and up to Untersburg, a series of mountain peaks. The Cable Car takes you up to 1776 metres, we then walked about a kilometre for another 100 metres of height. We were prepared for it to be fairly cool up here but again the skies were relatively clear and we were warm enough not to need our windcheaters.
Time to leave Salzburg and we had a 1 hour drive through some beautiful villages and countryside to Hallstatt, a small village where they mine salt - and have been for 7000 years! We wanted to go to the Salt Mine and decided to go there before checking into our hotel, having arrived in town around 2:00pm. The mine included a funicular trip up part of the mountain, some walking along a historical trail, then a tour of the mine itself. Once inside the mine we were told how they had found tools from the bronze age and in this way were able to date the mining of the salt. We also went down two long slides, including the longest in Austria of 64 metres. They were a bit of fun but overall we walked out wishing for a bit more detail of the mining process and history.
Hallstatt itself was more beautiful than we expected. It is on the shores of a lake with the mountains behind, virtually no traffic and lovely houses - very peaceful. The weather was still mild and we enjoyed a very nice stroll through the village, again just admiring the buildings and surroundings.
Dinner was at an outdoor restaurant on the shores of the lake and was one of the best meals we have had to date, Roast Duck (Trace) and Roast Pork (me), but both beautifully done. We will do some more exploring tomorrow morning before leaving for Slovenia
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