Unbelievable Spectacular Hallstatt, Austria

In June 2015 I joined East Europe tour from Jakarta, we’ve visited Hallstatt, the amazing village with its tranquil lake surrounding by traditional houses functioned as hotel, restaurant and shops with mountains. The bus just dropped us, it didn’t park there, we’re given 2 hours 45 minutes to stroll around. Hallstatt is known for its production of salt, dating back to prehistoric times, and gave its name to the Hallstatt culture. Recently UNESCO determined a big part of this region as a World Heritage worth to be preserved.

Going down from the bus, the lake was very attempting. The weather was quite cold for us, around 12 degree Celcius, so we wore jacket or long sleeves sweater with scarf to warm our neck. We sat on the edge of the lake, playing around with the beautiful swans which had a black color highlight around their eyes. Some of them even tried to bite my friend’s shoes.

Actually you could ride a boat to go around the lake, unfortunately we didn’t have enough time. An incident happened to a western tourist who sat next to us. Accidentally he dropped his smartphone to the lake, lucky the lake was crystal clear, so he could get back his smartphone although he had to swim and get wet. It must be very chilly, as the temperature was low and windy. I don’t know whether his phone could back to function well. Poor him…

After sitting around 30 minutes on the lake’s edge, we went to the left side not strolling the lake’s edge to the cathedral. It’s very quiet, but we found many beautiful traditional houses with colorful bright flowers. We posed in the middle of the street to get better scenery for the background. One of my friend was really addicted to photos, she would like us to take many shoots with her various pose in a place. She has a good body shape, she’s beautiful very creative to pose, unfortunately we didn’t have much time if we had to follow her desires all the time.

We found the railway up to the mountain which leads to the ancient salt mining. The station was quite near, you could take the panorama funicular to see the mystical area if you ride to the peak. The top was the tunnel mouth to the underground mining which was first dug by hand 3000 years ago. The railway was very steep and long, we took some pictures by jumping and my friend did the headstand (Yoga’s pose) with the path as the background. We had to aware for the traffic as the parking lot just next to it.

One of my friend was starving already, so she stopped at a beautiful restaurant to order pizza and crepes with ice cream, the bonus we could use the restroom/toilet free of charge. The toilet was very clean, and it used movement sensors to turn off/on the light automatically. It’s good to save energy. I bought an ice cream while my other friend bought orange juice. It’s nice to relax in the restaurant surrounding by the beautiful scenery and mild weather.

As time only 30 minutes remaining to return to the bus. We had to hurry, but we kept taking pictures on the way back to the meeting point. A beautiful scenery from a small bridge was attempted us to record the picturesque scenery.

Reaching the meeting point, we saw nobody in the bus, so we went further to the edge of the lake, we still had a chance to take beautiful pictures in front of the fence. Finally we’re the last persons to go into the bus.

In the bus, our friends showed their shopping hunting, beautiful 24K gold plated Austrian crystal ornament with various form such as musical instrument (harp, piano, etc.), angels, animals, etc. It cost around EUR25 for the small one. The shops were available around the picturesque historical market square. We didn’t have time to go there, we spent all hours to take pictures and stop a while for lunch in other direction. Most of our friends walked down the river towards the cathedral.

Time was too short, we should stay overnight there. You should spend your holiday among lovely mountains and lakes. Millions of people have already been photographed against the stunning backdrop, which for many visitors counts as one of the most beautiful motives in Europe.