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Hallstatt

We are staying at the Heritage Hotel in Hallstatt for 2 nights in late September. We will be coming from Salzburg by bus or train, I have no idea how yet really. I was actually wondering the best way to get there, if the hotel was a nice place and what we should do while we are there. Once we leave here, we will be headed to Lauterbrunnen, again, I have not figured that out yet. I am in the early phases of planning. Any tips or reccomodatzons would be great! :)

Posted by
362 posts

In the Hallstatt area after exploring the town, we enjoyed the saltmine tour & especially Dachstein 5 finger lookout. We were treated to 1 metre of snow up there mid-Sep17 making it absolutely magical.

Posted by
186 posts

The Heritage Hotel is absolutely lovely in every way. I stayed there two years ago. It is located in multiple buildings within the town. We had a very large room on the top floor of one of those buildings. Unsurpassed views of the lake and mountains. Rooms in the main building are probably more convenient but may not have the same views. We had a car so I can't help regarding bus or train transportation.

Posted by
3809 posts

Hello, peidot870. I looked back at some of your previous posts, and it seems you like to post somewhat crazy itineraries and then solicit feedback. So... let's teach you to fish instead of giving you a fish.

Google Maps (maps.google.com) is pretty reliable for determining drive times between destinations. It is NOT very reliable for public transportation times. Enter Hallstatt in the "Search Google Maps" box and you get a map of Hallstatt. Hit the "Directions" button in the upper left hand corner, and then type in Lauterbrunnen. That will give you your driving options and the time for each route. It's more driving than I would want to do in a day.

The Deutsch Bahn website (bahn.com) is good for looking up train schedules for many European countries (especially German-speaking ones). It's pretty easy to use. Enter your starting place and your destination. You will see that it takes 4-6 transfers and 10-12 hours to get to Lauterbrunnen from Hallstatt. As with drive time, this is more train than I would want in one day.

If your headed to the Lauterbrunnen area, Hallstatt is totally skippable because you are going to see tall mountains and a lake in Switzerland (I say this as someone who has been to both places). If you feel like your life is not complete without a visit to Hallstatt, consider it as a day trip from Salzburg and skip the extra luggage/lodging move (but keep in mind that round trip is 4-5 hours by train).

Good luck with planning and have fun on your trip!

Posted by
3809 posts

From looking at other posts, it looks like your plan is Munich --> Salzburg --> Hallstatt --> Lauterbrunnen --> ? Luzern

I guess the other option for keeping Hallstatt on your itinerary as a lodging locale is to go to Hallstatt after Munich and then to Salzburg. At least your not back-tracking on a long travel day that way.

Posted by
4637 posts

It's more scenic to come by train. The station is on the other side of the lake and boat will be waiting. You will be approaching this magical town from the water. Have your camera ready.

Posted by
45 posts

Thank you for the suggestions. I will look into the salt tour and Dachstein 5 finger lookout. The train with the ferry sounds beautiful. I think I have a post saved about the ferry when I was looking at ways to get there. I like to get all the addresses and locations, costs, hours of operations etc and I make a book with directions and a map too. That way we have everything we need. I’ll pre purchase tickets too. That was a God send in Italy :) I even went and made Itinerary’s in visitacity. It really helped with times and locations. We didn’t folllow it all the way but it gave us good information. 😊

Posted by
3809 posts

No offense intended. I was just reflecting your verbage in this post, where you asked if your itinerary was "too crazy." The forum essentially said yes, and I think you had a better trip because you narrowed the scope of it.

If you are cool with 10-12 hour train trips with 4-6 transfers, then revel in the glory of it!

BTW, if Hallstatt makes the final cut, Dachstein Krippenstein is the site of the 5Fingers viewing platform, but it has all sorts of cool things to see and do. The platform is pretty special, but my favorite thing there is the ice cave.

Enjoy your planning!

Posted by
45 posts

I appreciate that. I just didn't like be told or taught "how to fish" I know how to look things up and use maps. I did that for months. It can get very frustrating, cause a lot of headaches when planning it all out. We did take Switzerland and Pisa out of that trip. I wish I put Lake Como in and took out Milan but not. knowing what Milan was like then and y daughter being able to meet her friend there it was still worth it. He is from Lecco so Lake Como would have worked too. I wish we could have squeezed in Pisa but it was a great trip. I did see a post about the Ice Caves and I would love to see those too.

Any ideas on places to eat, better places in Switzerland, routes etc. I am open to suggestions and I do listen. I decided on the areas to go by what people have said. I do want to go back to Italy, I loved it and there is so many other places to see that are just beautiful! I could spend months there!!

I look forward to Bavarian villages, beautiful views and meeting some neat people!

Posted by
5362 posts

For Austrian train travel, you need to use oebb.at, not DB.

Posted by
1875 posts

If you go from Salzburg to Hallstatt and back to Salzburg, you may consider different routes for arriving and leaving.

There is a train connection from Salzburg to Hallstatt (one change); alternatively there is a bus from Salzburg to Bad Ischl where you have trains to Hallstatt, and vice versa.

Bad Ischl is also worth a visit. It is a beautiful town, it was the place where emperor Franz Joseph I. of Austria spent his summer vacations in his villa. If you are interested in history you can see the desk where he had put the infamous signature on the declaration of war which triggered World War I, eventually destroyed his empire, and caused the death of about 20 million people.

If you like sweets and cakes walk to the cafe "Zauner" and buy one of their famous "Zauner-Stollen" as a take-away, unique to this area and very difficult to buy elsewhere.

Posted by
119 posts

Do you like to hike? We spent 2 nights in Hallstatt last August. We had planned to use the Dachstein Kripenstein cable car for hiking but we were caught in a huge thunderstorm and did not want to be exposed to lightening in a cable car or on the open hiking trails. Instead we hiked up to the salt mines above Halstatt (you could take the funicular if you didn't want to hike up), kept going above the salt mines and came back down into Hallstatt past some incredibly beautiful waterfalls, gorges, cliffs and valleys. The scenery is stunning and if you enjoy photography you will love it. We also enjoyed walking around Hallstatt - beautiful churches, church grounds and commercial and residential buildings. It worked out well to hike during the day and then enjoy the quiet town from about 5:00 on. We traveled to Hallstatt from Salzburg by train, then continued our trip to using a shuttle.