Hallstatt Day 2

Hello Friends! I am cracking down, cracking the whip, and cracking my brain trying to get all this down! I need to get it all out before I forget everthing that is happening. First though, thanks everyone who is so interested in my adventures. I love sharing the pictures and the stories and I know that I will be grateful to have written it all down so when I look back I can say, "Oh yeah! I did that!"

So this is cool for me to. Thanks Milds and Arleem for commenting too! I get so excited to see your messages and I am glad that you are liking my updates. Joni! So cool that you have been keeping up! What book are you reading that I am keeping you from? Tia Louisa! Get better soon!

Okay so let's get some scoop on Hallstatt. Brandon and I decided that we were going to stay at one "nice" place on our trip. We were planning on doing it more towards the middle of the trip but somehow we got wrapped up in the nice hotels of Hallstatt and decided to splurge there. We started out by deciding to stay at this French place, but they were full. So we moved onto to this really nice four star hotel. Even though it was two in the morning when we were planning this, we still were smart enough to realize that we probably shouldn't be spending all that money so we went one step down. It was still rediculous so we went with our last option. Good, but not super fancy. Turns our we definitly made the right choice in the end.

Our hotel was about 2 minutes out of the center of town. Mind you the town takes about 5 minutes to walk through. Anyway, the room was great, nice bathroom, good view, and this place included a breakfast buffet and dinner in their restaraunt for 10 euros. 

Here is the breakfast room. The breakfast here was the best breakfast at hotel that I have ever had. They had everything I can't even tell you. Cereal, yogurt, cheese, meat, eggs, rice, fruit, bread, toast, spreads, jams, nutella, sasuage, bacon, water, orange juice, hmmm I am sure I am missing stuff. Then of course they serve you whatever drink you want, hot chocolate, coffee, tea.

Brandon killed this both days! The hotel is run by this man and his wife. He does the reception and is the server and his wife cooks. They were so cute and so so nice. Please, if you go to Hallstatt, stay here. It is called Gunner Anger. Here's the link http://anger.hallstatt.net/?lang=en

And here is a terrible picture of the reception.

The courtyard in front. The hotel also has bikes that you can use for free. It was kind of chilly this morning and rainy but we were going out! The owner man told us to risk it, it would be over in about 15 minutes.

The view across the street.

So Brandon and I set off on a trail that he has discovered the day before. But then the rain reallz came down  so you hid out under an old shack.

It's raining but that doesn't stop us!

Cool picture. Saw this mirror while we were waiting for the rain to pass. 

And the dude was right! The rain stopped. Then we went to another abandoned house. Brandon trespassed and climbed the stari

Back on the bikes!

Here's the path we were on.

Does this not look like the Pacific Northwest!

So we climbed, ha that's an exageration, we took a set of stairs up to this hole in the cliff. Apparently this place was really hard to reach 100 years ago, not sure why, it was not that high!

Then we saw a sign for "wasserfall." Cool! Let's go!

Wow! Don't we look really tall!

Brandon hiked out a bit.

Then for some reason, the sun came out!

This path was really cool. So beautiful. Here are a ton of pictures, go through them as fast as you like, but it was really beautiful!

Here's the trail we did....upside down. Opps

We rode back into town and we were feeling good, so we decided to ride to the other side of town. We got some really pretty views of the lake.

The church in this town is a Protestant Church. Always cool to see those because they are few and far between.

On the otherside of town.

We made it to the other side.

And then the clouds opened up. It started to rain, hard.We peddled home as quick as we could but it was not quick enough. We got completely soaked. And I only have one pair of pants!

It was around noon anyway so we went back to the hotel to dry out. The combination of hanging my pants on the radiator and Brandon and I taking turns blowdrying my pants, they got dry enough so that I could wear them without freezing. I warmed up my shoes with the blowdrier and we were ready to go.

The sun came out again which was great. This time we were heading up. See the mountain on the left. That's where we're going. The oldest salt mine in the world is here in Hallstatt so this afternoon that was going to be us.

You can take a funicular to the top and conveniently it was 100 meters from our hotel. The funicular did not look the studiest so I was a bit minervous but once we got inside it was fine.

View from the funicular.

An English man we met.

View from the top.

An old salt elevator.

More top views.

Hmmm... that's an interesting choice.

Brandon!

Not great Britt and Brandon.

Um... wow! Isn't that amazing!

So all the signs up here are on mirrors which is a bit odd but whatever.

Brandon with no head.

Making our way up to the mines.

So Brandon has researched this in and out. The salt mine tour takes you through the mines, gives you the history and some info. But one really cool thing is that you use slides to go between the floors. They give you outfits to wear so you don't ruin your clothes. Don't we look good!

The entrance to the mine! Our guide was really cool!

Here we go!

Neat picture of Brandon walking down the salt mine.

What are we getting ourselves into!

Nah! It's all good.

The first slide. These were pretty fun! So cool.

Here we go.

Different layers of the salt.

So the second slide was big. You can go as fast as 40 km per hour. Brandon hit 28,6.

Here's me getting off the slide.

I got 24,3.

Then they had this neat light show.

Here's our guide becoming part of the display. Here's in blue in case you were confused.

To get out of the mine, you ride on a little train.

What an angle!

The train out in the open.

People in their suits.

They take pictures when you go down the slide that you can buy. I just took pictures of the pictures.

Heading down from the salt mines.

The following are mirror pictures.

Instead of taking the funicular down we decided to hike.

The Austrian Flag is everyewhere.

So after this packed day we were beat. But we were super excited to eat dinner at the hotel. We had read so many reviews from people talking about how lovely the meal was here. And it was great! In Hallstatt, you are supposed to have the fish so I did! It was my first time eating trout.

This soup was so delicous. It was a vegetable cream soup. And Claire this was way better than ours!

Salad... the dressing was addicting. So vinegary!

My fish! For some reason this picture does not make it look appetizing but it was beautiful.

Dessert!

All this was 10 Euros!

After dinner the sun came out so we went for a walk to see if we could get some good shots at sunset.

This really nice French woman took this picture.

And our hotel!

Whew! That was a lot but I hope you enjoyed the pcitures. Sorry for all the typos, I have no way to check it and as it seems, all the words are being marked as mispelled!