Spent some time last week in Austria, Hallstatt & Salzburg.
Hallstatt - Stayed 1 night at the Seehotel Gruner Baum. Enjoyed it very much, our rooms overlooked the lake & was not disappointed. The room was large & very nice. Also, very warm, the hotel itself was overall warm, no controls in the room to decrease the temp. But with two windows & the balcony door open I had a nice cool breeze in the room. Weather worked for us, only rained at night while sleeping. Great water pressure & very hot water. Did the usually walk around town, up to the waterfall, church & bone cemetery, very peaceful surrounding. Did not make it to the Salt Mine, my mother has limited mobility, but did rent an electric boat for an hour or so on the lake. I highly recommend this, great views of Hallstatt & the surrounding areas. Busses routinely dropping off tourist groups to visit the town, around 5pm they started to head out. Majority of the gift shops closed around 6pm for the night. We really enjoyed just walking through the town in the evening & got great pictures then & first thing in the morning.
Shuttle - The shuttle from the hotel guest parking lot, P-1, is not ran by the hotel itself, it is controlled by the town. So when we arrived at 12:30, called on the intercom as indicated by the hotel’s email & were told by the person on the other end that the shuttle would be there in 10 minutes we were happy. The shuttle arrived; the driver dropped off his passengers then proceeded to the office & closed the door. As he past us standing there by the van he said, “I’m on break until 2:30” & continued to the office & closed the door. There is only 1 shuttle. We left our luggage in the car & walked into town & headed to the hotel. They apologized & said this has been an issue & that the hotels have complained about it with the town council.
Overall, a pleasant visit to Hallstatt, I really want to return when there is snow all around & enjoy the stillness & fresh air.
Salzburg - Stayed 2 nights at the Alstadthotel Kasererbraeu, I wanted to be in the Old Town, making it easier for my mom to get around to the sites. The hotel was nice, again great water pressure & hot water, WiFi worked well; breakfast was good & had a variety of items. There were even a few folks sitting around reviewing their RS books before heading out. It rained only at one point when we went out, but we just sat at a Café & waited it out. We hit all the major sites while there, Churches, cemetery, Fortress, Mozart’s house and gardens. Even got on the Hop-on Hop-off bus & enjoyed the city sites & information. As with every place in Europe, as the evening progressed the crowds of tourists decreased. Once again enjoying the evening strolls. We found a restaurant that we really enjoyed, ate two meals there, full of locals, Zwettlers, http://www.zwettlers.com/en/home/. I highly recommend the Salzburger Nockerl w/raspberries for dessert. 3 peaks of meringue over fresh raspberries, takes 20 minutes to prepare. Other places advertised the dessert as well. The one thing you could not get away from were the red boxes of chocolates with Mozart’s face on them, they were for sale everywhere, https://www.google.com/search?q=mozarts+chocolates&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=IEVvVbKhMM3poAS164O4DA&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=711, one would think he was a Chocolatier than a musician.