the next stop on our route was hallstatt [G], a town that sits in the 40 meters between a lakeshore and a rock face that goes up 300 meters.
up to the end of the 19th century, hallstatt was only reachable by boat or narrow paths. i think the only reason that the village was established there in the first place, lies in the rich deposits of salt, which have been mined since approx. 5.000 b.c.
parts of that history can be seen in the salzwelten (salt worlds), a mining museum which offers guided tours into the mines.

internationally, hallstatt is probably best known for the beinhaus: since there’s hardly any space at all available in hallstatt, the dead remained buried for about 10 years, after which time the bones were be removed from the cemetary. they were then painted and decorated elaborately, and placed in the beinhaus (ossuary).

last time we were in the region, we only had a few hours in hallstatt, which is why we stayed overnight this time. bräu-gasthof lobisser is located in the narrow part of hallstatt with views of the lake, and has comfortable rooms with typical austrian furniture.
(i recommend to reconfirm your reservation before you arrive in hallstatt.)

[view photos: hallstatt, austria]

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when we had seen a little more than a glimpse of vienna, we drove west through a region called wachau (one of austria’s wine regions), and on to its landmark: stift melk, or melk abbey [G].
it was there, that my enthusiasm for creating panorama-images sort-of reached a highlight – which is why you’ll find lots of architectural panoramas in this album.

after the tour through the abbey, i introduced larry to fleischkas¹ (cindy staid at a safe distance ;) ), and we headed on to linz, before driving to our accommodation for the night, at fuschl am see [G].

[view photos: wachau and melk abbey]

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as mentioned before, cindy and larry byers visited austria in late september.

we met at a hotel just outside of vienna, austria.
cindy’s gps navigation device turned out not to work in austria (contrary to what customer support had told her), and due to the combination of inner city traffic, roadsigns in a foreign language etc. they got lost. i’m pretty sure i would instantly get lost in that city without gps.
i ended up guiding them to our meeting point using my laptop, a wireless internet card and google maps.
what did people do before there was the internet, or google?

update: larry reminded me to mention the final instruction i gave them before they arrived at the hotel: still on the phone, i went out on the street, and just before they came around the corner, i mentioned “…and look out for that crazy person that’s standing in the middle of the street”. they drove very carefully. ;-)

here’s part 1 of the more detailled photographic documentation, covering bits of the sightseeing in vienna.

[view photos: vienna, austria]

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