Day 2 - Hallstatt - 24 Sep 2016

Both of us got up at 5am in the morning. Somehow, we couldn't sleep anymore but we knew we had a good approximately 8 hours of sleep. And so, we decided to take the earlier train to Salzburg instead of our original planned time.

We took an Uber car to Hauptbahnhof station which cost us EUR 5. At the station, we managed to get the train tickets to Salzburg with the departure time at 655am. With only about 20min before the train departed, breakfast was "buy and go". With a donut, croissant and a cup of cafe latte, we boarded the train.

The train ride was 3 hours. We arrived at Salzburg station at 10am. Thankful to google map and a wife who knew how to interpret those tiny lines, we walked and lugged our luggages and reached our hotel, Mercure hotel, at about 920am. As it was too early to check in, we dropped the luggages at the hotel and began our adventure.

As our tour to Hallstatt was going to commence at 1pm, we decided to have our brunch near where the meeting point was at Mirabellplatz. Undecided on our brunch venue, it was sheer serendipity that we came across Cafe Fingerlos which on hindsight, had very good reviews. I had an omelette and I must say that it tasted heavenly. Even my wife, who is quite a connoisseur of food, concurred with me.

Feeling very satisfied, we got to Mirabellplatz where a large coach would bring us to Hallstatt. It was a one and half hour ride through the Salzkammergut area (Lake District), with a few highlights of its lakes such as Fuschlsee lake and Wolfgang lake and of course, the Hallstatt lake.

At 230pm, we reached Hallstatt and this beautiful and quaint village was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We did the skywalk tour. A furnicular brought us up the mountain and when we reached the top, the breathtaking mountains and the panoramic view over Lake Hallstatt simply arrested my attention. The next instinctive thing to do was to take out our selfie stick and snapped away with the phone camera.

Unfortunately, salt mine was out of our list to visit. We were en route to it but decided to turn back as we figured that time was our constraint. What a shame.

We took the furnicular again and descended from the mountain. For the remaining time we had, we ambled along Lake Hallstatt while finding the perfect spot for the classic shot of us with Lake Hallstatt, the church, Alpine houses and the towering mountains at the backdrop. For some reason, though most shots were good, it wasn't taken on that vantage spot and we reckoned that we'd run out of time if I insisted on looking for it. There were some pretty shops along Lake Hallstatt where we got some toys for our kids.

At 430pm, we boarded the coach and it was another one and half hour back to Salzburg. When we arrived at 6pm, we walked around the old town and it was full of life; chatter and laughter were all up in the air. We dined at Ludwig Burger Restaurant. It was located at a quiet corner and thus, our dinner felt rather peaceful. And with burgers, how wrong can it go?

After dinner, we walked along the sides of Salzach River where there were a large variety of makeshift stores that sell many different things ranging from accessories, handicrafts and so on. We got for ourselves some scented diffuser kind of stuff for our house and car.

Our night ended at 830pm. As I recalled and penned this, I must say that today was such a wonderful day overall, though much time was spent on the road. But for a person like me who just loves everything about scenery and picturesque sights, Hallstatt will go down as one of the most memorable place that I've ever visited.