Salzburg Salt mine tours

Lee,

There are two Salt Mines in that area, and both offer tours. You can tour either the Mines in Berchtesgaden or Hallstatt. At Berchtesgaden there is road access right to the entrance of the mine, while at Hallstatt it's necessary to take a Funicular and then hike for about 15 minutes to get to the entrance. The Mines at Hallstatt have been around for about 7000 years, so there's LOTS of history there, and also a very interesting Museum in the town.

As you'll be taking a train from Germany, I'd suggest contacting Bob's Special Tours in Salzburg, as they provide day tours to both areas using Mini Vans. They're listed in Rick's book and they offer day tours to both locations.

A bit of information that might help to decide between them. If you choose Berchtesgaden, you can also visit the Documentation Centre above town, which has displays of the WW-II era, and a look at some of the Bunker complex. If you choose Hallstatt, it's an incredibly beautiful small town on a lake, and at the top of the Funicular there's an old Castle called Rudolfsturm which has a restaurant and patio - great place to have a meal and a cold beer while looking over the incredible scenery.

Good luck with your choice and happy travels!

We did Berchtesgaden. From what others who did Hallstatt say, it sounds like both tours have essentially the same elements. The tour was a highlight of our trip. It included dressing in miners overalls with a leather beaver-tail. Riding on a tiny train through tunnels, using a wooden slide instead of stairs that resembled an old bowling ball return and riding a raft accross an underground lake with classical music and changing colored lights. There was also a bunch of very serious history about salt mining. Overall it was well worth the time.

There is a third salt mine in Hallien-The Bad Durnberg Salt works. We toured this in September and it was good. (I have also done the Hallstatt-I prefered Hallien. On the Hallstatt tour, we got very little English information. On the Hallien tour, the guide would come to us first and give us the explanation, then she gave the explanation in German. We got a lot more out of the tour.) We had a car. However, in the RS book he states: "The convenient Salz Erlebns ticket from Salzburg's train station covers admission, train, and shuttle bus tickets all in one round trip ticket-22 Euros. (I think the salt mine by itself was around 18 Euros) He also states that he thinks this tour is better than Hallstatt. The grounds also have a Celtic Villiage you can walk through-not super exciting but... Have fun.
P.S. This mine tour also has the train, the slides, and the getting on a raft and going across an underground lake. You also pass from Austria into Germany and back. The Hallstatt tour had the Train and slides, but we did not cross an undergound lake-I remember because I thought we were going to do that and we didn't.

We went on the same tour as Connie in Hallein. We really enjoyed it! We were the only English speakers on the tour, and the tourguide would constantly bring us to the front to say everything in English first. He was very impressive. I wish we could post pictures on this website. I LOVED the wood slides! As Connie said, the Celtic Village wasn't very impressive. We bought the all-inclusive pass from the train station. It was a great outing because we had planned for Berechtesgaden but it rained, so this was our "rainy day" plan... You won't regret a trip here...

Regarding the aspect of getting tours in English - I believe Rick's book indicate that if visitors at the Hallstatt tour request English, Guides have to provide it. I found that to be the case, although the very talented Guide on my tour was also using Italian for one couple, as well as English and German.

Are any of the Salt Mine tours available in the winter, the week after Christmas? Sounds like fun!

Ken, here's the website for the Hallein tour that we went on: http://salzwelten.at/cont/salzwelten/salzwelten_home.aspx
You should be able to find dates/times on there...

Ken- We did request the English version on the Hallstatt tour-it was just disappointing. It was obvious that were getting a "watered" down version of the tour. I even remember them having a "less than enthusiastic" reaction to our request for English and they made a point of telling us that while they would give some info in English, they could not give all the information that way. At Hallein, however, we got excellent information and it was obvious that we were getting the same information that the German speaking visitors were getting.

My teen daughter and I also did the tour at Hallein. We were there this past August. It was GREAT! Our guide was fabulous - he gave the tour in English, German, and Italian!!