Favorite lake areas near Salzburg

I agree with James. We stayed for 5 days near St. Wolfgang a few years ago and loved the area. Hallstatt was nice to visit, but to me, it seemed a bit isolated and fancied up. Our family in Germany goes to St. Wolfgang every few years themselves.

If you go to the Austrian tourism website, www.austria.info, you can click on the links for Salzkammergut, which lists accomodations. We stayed in a farmhouse that rents out doubles for about 40 euro/night. Nothing like fresh milk and eggs in the morning. And the tourism board has tons of brochures they'll send you which include maps of hiking trails.

Hi Elena,

We also thought about 3 hours was enough time in Hallstatt. We also spent a day in Zell am See 2 years ago. Loved it. Going back this year also. Gorgeousl lakeside setting with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, beautiful lakeside promenade to walk along and plenty of shops and cafe's, etc. We have some pic's at:

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/index.html

Paul

I would recommend St. Gilgen as it has a beautiful location on the Wolfgangsee and is more centrally located to visit Mondsee, Bad Ischl & Hallstatt.

How do the Austrian lakes and villages east of Salzburg compare to those across the border in Bavaria, such as the Chiemsee? For instance, if you were visitng Salzburg from the west after having seen two or three mountain lakes in Bavaria, would the Salzkammergut be more of the same or offer a different experience?

Paul, your pictures are beautiful and are helping us make some destination decisions. Thanks for posting them. We are now seriously considering replacing Hallstat with Zell am See. Just proves that a picture is worth a thousand words!

I wouldn't write off Hallstatt at all. We spent a day there and absolutely LOVED it. Also spent time in Mondsee and St. Wolfgang, which we also enjoyed. But, there was something special about Hallstatt.

Elena,

I'd definitely recommend Hallstatt as an option to consider. I spent a couple of days there last year, and it was wonderful!

Some of the activities you could do there:

• Just relax and explore the town. Take a trip across the lake on Stefanie and do some light hiking (lots of the European visitors were doing that).

• Visit the interesting Museum

• Take the Funicular up the mountain and take the Salt Mine tour. Very interesting and sliding down the wooden rails was lots of fun!

• On the way back from the Salt Mine tour, stop at RudolphSturm for lunch. That's the large Castle at the top of the Funicular, and the view from the patio there is incredible!

• If you'd prefer, you could take the Funicular up to the Salt Mine, and then hike down. The downhill hike is a bit hard on the knees, so I didn't try that but I spoke with others that did that.

Happy travels!

Definitely take a boat ride on the Konigsee, one of the most beautiful lakes around. The boat takes you to a beautiful 12th cent. church, St. Bartholoma. The water is a strange and lovely shade of green but very clean.

Hi, thanks for all the responses! After writing this, I realized the only hostel with openings still was in Mondsee, so I ended up going there and enjoying it for a day. I'd wanted to check out St. Gilgen or Hallstatt, but I decided that I'd be too stressed and waste too much time with all the transportation, so I just stayed in Mondsee and made the best of it. It's small and maybe not quite as charming but there was enough there for a nice day and a half just relaxing. But this will mean that sometime I will need to go back and check out these other places!