Ciao, Bella! Blog: Day 4 - Vienna/Hallstatt

Another travel lesson we've learned is the need to balance busy cities with smaller villages. In Italy, this mid-trip "refresh" was the Cinque Terre.

In Austria, it was Hallstatt.

You might remember that a photo of Hallstatt was part of the reason we chose to visit Austria in the first place. As we traveled further from Vienna and deeper into the Alps foothills, it became clear that we weren't going to be disappointed. During the direct (!!!) train ride from Vienna to Hallstatt, we were so shocked at the ease of the day's travels that we made the trip more difficult by almost leaving our train when we were just supposed to sit tight.

We were charmed by an Austrian couple with three young daughters who shared our train car for a small portion of the 4 hour ride. As we made small talk, Brendan gave the father sympathetic looks. (Poor guy doesn't stand a chance with that many girls.)

After we exited the train at our destination, we were greeted with our first views of Lake Hallstatt (Halstattsee) and the picturesque town on the opposite side. If you close your eyes and try to imagine a Bavarian village, you're thinking of Hallstatt.

The town - with its rich salt mine - has been settled since the early centuries and was nearly untouched during the war. As we crossed the lake from the train station to the town on the small ferry Stefanie, we felt like we were also crossing back in time.

Still across the lake from Hallstatt and already charmed. The awful weather from earlier in the week turned into a blessing in disguise as the cold snap killed almost all the bugs that normally take over the lake this time of year.

We stayed at the Heritage Hotel and snagged one of their top rooms thanks again to my behaving like an 80 year old woman. I was uber-specific as to what building I wanted (there are 3 owned by the hotel in various areas of the town), which floor, and that we insisted on a balcony. Being embarrassingly cranky = totally worth it. In the photo above, you can see the small ferry that carries pedestrians to and from the train station.

View to the left of our room.

View looking to the right of our balcony

It was difficult pulling ourselves away from our hotel room's view, but we managed and began exploring the quaint town. Hallstatt is small and easily walkable -- no cars are allowed in the main town during business hours. We managed to squeeze in a short hike to a waterfall viewpoint and enjoyed the extremely well done Hallstatt Museum, where the kind ticketer gave us the "hotel" discount even though we didn't bring our coupon with us. (I can't get enough of my city museums!)