St Wolfgang - Hallein - St Wolfgang

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A quick look at the salt mine tour brochure to complain at how hopeless it was in saying the salt mine was open when it wasn't after we drove there revealed that the one at Hallein, not Hallstat, was fully operationally all year round.  Whoops!

Even so, we made a phone call to make sure and were rewarded with a 'yes we are open".  Broke the good news to the kids and off we went to Hallein.


 

Passports please...

Although a salt mine sounds as exciting as paint drying it was actually one of the best things we've done so far.  Salt has been mined for thousands of years in the area and was used primarily as a food preservative and thus very valuable pre-refrigeration.  

Salzburg (literally salt castle or salt city) grew wealthy on the back of this salt trade and as a result played an important part in Austrian history.

All aboard the miner's slide

We paid our money and donned some white suits, looking like extras in a Ku Klux Klan documentary, and went on a little train underground with our guide.  

After a while we got off the train and went for a walk through the old mine shafts learning about the history of the salt trade.  From digging it out by hand a few thousand years ago to the industrialisation of the process.

One of the shafts we were in actually went under the border so we crossed underground from Austria to Germany and then back again.  Not many people can say they've done that so we were quite chuffed.

Miner's slide - probably the only fun
part of their day

We also got to use the miners slides which are 2 parallel wooden beams that the miners used to slide down to get to their work areas quicker.  There weren't many people on the tour so the kids took full advantage of that and ran up the stairs and slid down 4 times.

Went on a boat on an underground salt lake (27% salt) and then we hopped back on the train and went back to the surface.

Old school mining - pre-industrialization

Highly recommended tour which was a lot of fun and very well done.

After a quick hit up of the souvenir shop we went into the town of Hallein for a sub-standard coffee and some above standard cakes for afternoon tea and drove home after that.

Hallein

Bakery store motif