Wednesday 17th October 2018
Well today we start on our way home, still a bit of a tour day but we are hoping to travel about 300km of the 620km we have to travel back to Benny’s place at Chemnitz. We didn’t really succeed with this as we are still 507km from home and 5.5 hours away. Oh well, looks like it is a big drive day tomorrow.

We headed out and it took about 30 mins for us to find our way out of the city. There were road blocks, dead ends and more road blocks, causing me havoc. Finally made it out after having to set the GPS to go back to our hotel and start again. Things weren’t looking to good for my day of driving but once we got out of the city things did improve.

We drove to Hallstatt via Fuschl, St Gilgen, Wolfgangsee and Abersee – the scenery was amazing, magnificent, brilliant and spectacular. The adjectives were flowing today. The mountains, the lakes and the farmland was awesome.

We arrived at Hallstatt at about 12pm and as we walked towards the town Mum saw the funicular up the mountainside and like a little kid was keen to go up to the top. So up we went and also decided to include a tour of the Salt Mine (about 80mins). They didn’t tell us that you had a long uphill walk from the cable car to the start of the Salt mine tour. They also said there was only about 90 steps and a little bit of walking. Mum counted over 300 steps and we walked for most of the 80mins. They also didn’t tell us that we had to go on 2 slides and a train through the tight tunnels. Mum managed really well for an ‘old chook’ and was getting the thumbs up from a few fellow tourists for managing the slides. They were very steep and fast. What an adventure, besides the mountains of information we received. we went 400m underground.

After the tour we still had to walk back down, catch the funicular and we hadn’t eaten any lunch and it was already 4pm. I convinced Mum togo for a little walk into the outskirts of the township as it is very beautiful. We rewarded ourselves with a hot chocolate and cup of tea and a couple of pastries for lunch. The town is very quaint and the views across the lake to the mountains is spectacular. Whilst having our late lunch/treat I managed to book our home for the night. About 1 hours drive from Hallstatt. Not as far as I would have liked to have made by the end of tonight, but all in all it had been a long day and I thought that was far enough.

We had a great day and were in bed by 7.30pm after a dinner of crackers, rice cakes and avocado. Too tired to go out for dinner. We will hopefully make up for it tomorrow morning with our hotel breakfast.

Hallstatt Salt Mine Tour – The oldest salt mine in the world, Europe’s oldest wooden staircase and the free-floating Skywalk with its “World Heritage View”, 360 metres above the ground: Hallstatt Salt Mine is a mine of superlatives. Take a journey of discovery, back to the very beginnings of salt mining some 7,000 years ago, and experience the history of Bronze Age mining, recounted today in spectacular fashion thanks to state-of-the-art multimedia technology, including a Bronze Age Cinema 400 metres below ground. Here, you will experience up-close the very breath of history. It was an amazing 2 hours.