Day trip to Hallstatt and Salzburg

Jean and Dave:
Today we are blessed with another very nice day when it was not supposed to be that way.  THANK YOU LORD!!! 

The cliff side village of Hallstatt, Austria

We had decided yesterday to head to Hallstatt and Salzburg today so at 9:00am we started out.  Of course on the autobahn.  We set Gertie to Hallstatt and 2 ½ hours later, we were there. 

Hallstatt, Austria

Stopped for a bathroom break at one of the rest stops and stopped another time to see what a bus and lots of cars and people were looking at around Golling. 

Hallstatt, Austria

Turns out it was some type of a gorge and the bus load of people sorta deterred us from going into it, plus, we wanted to save our going down and coming up for Hallstatt. 

Hallstatt, Austria

In 2010 we visited Hallstatt but really didn’t see much as it was a very very crowded touristy village that day and so very hot as well.

Back alleys and steps

We ate some of our lunch in the car en route to Hallstatt and the rest when we got to the parking lot.  Then headed down to the main street of Hallstatt. 

The Protestant Church from on high

When we entered Hallstatt we saw men and women dressed in period costume walking back a side street–in a procession - some had guns. 

Many steps to climb

On the way from the parking lot to downtown we heard guns – not sure what that was all about but it must have been some type of reenactment–and we missed it!!! 

Back alleys

Dave has always thought he might like to go up by cog rail and down into the salt mines and we had decided we would do that today. 

The end of the road

However, we decided to walk through the lovely town first, get some great pictures while the sun was still shining and then do the salt mine trip at the end. 

Proof we were there

Bad decision because we didn’t have time to do that salt mine trip.  It was fun walking to the top of the 4 levels of homes in this village.  From the bottom level it looks like the houses are completely on top of each other.  Very nice to see this and we enjoyed Hallstatt with the old wooden homes some natural and some painted pastel colors.  There were many steps to climb and alleyways to explore there on the side of the cliff.  There were still lots of tourists but not so many on the back alleys and stairs. 

Along the Salzach River, Hallstatt Austria

Then off about 2:00 for Salzburg, which Gertie said would be an hour’s drive.  Dave was concerned about heading into Salzburg from the north end as she was taking us - it brought back memories of 2010 a few times trying to get in through the Zentrum. 

Is that Jean trying her hand at graffiti work

So after passing Stobl, St. Wolfgang and St. Gilgens, we stopped and tried to type in McDonalds–well there were a lot of them, so that didn’t work.  Next we typed in Hellbrunn as we remembered we biked there while at Marietta’s in 2010 and it was nice and we found the same street to the Salzach River as we had used before - a good place to unload bikes.
 It was good to ride along and view the sites - just for old times sake!!!  It was busy as ever with families walking, bikers like us and people pushing wheel chairs and strollers.

Along the Salzach River

We enjoyed that little excursion today, about 1 ½ hours and then back to the car

The Hohensalzburg Castle along the river

and a quick stop at the McDonalds drive-through for coffee to go.  Back on the autobahn and Gertie said we should be home by 7:07pm–that was about 1 hour and 15 minutes drive.  However, she did not tell us about a traffic jam down the road and that wasted about 30 minutes at least.  It was therefore 7:30pm when we got home and Dave was tired driving.  It was a good Sunday drive and we should sleep well tonight.