The train from Vienna thundered across the Austrian countryside, disappearing through mountain tunnels and skirting the edge of picturesque lakes and tiny mountain villages. We left our cabin and staked out the windows in the wide area at the back of the car where racks of skis were stored for the journey on to the ski resorts higher in the Alps. From here we could alternate back and forth as each new Alpine vista opened up on alternating sides of the train. Above us, soaring mountain peaks stood bright with fresh snow, while on the valley floor the rushing Traun river ebbed and flowed through swirling pools created by fallen branches and twisting roots, its banks dotted with bright colored flowers and thick patches of cool green grass. In order to take photographs we opened the windows and the clean mountain air quickly filled the train car. Then suddenly we were careening along the edge of a vast lake, following a narrow wooden walkway that clung to the shoreline, which disappeared occasionally through the forest and periodically crossed bridges where streams flowed down from above. Across the water, the small Austrian village of Hallstatt began to come into view, its clusters of wooden cottages stacked up the side of the mountain, its boat slips and vinecovered boathouses lining the shore. My heart was racing because I'd seen photographs of this legendary town for so long, but wasn't sure i'd ever see it in person.
The train leaves you at a small building on the western shore of the Halstattersee. From there, a narrow path leads you from the tracks down to an old wooden dock, while across the water, the ferry "Stefanie" answers the call of the train whistle, slicing through the clear water with its trail of whitewater foaming behind it.
Within minutes you've boarded the ship and are traversing the Alpine lake, which mirrors the town in its glassy surface, creating a kaleidascope of weathered wood, greenery, and flowerboxes of red blossoms. The church of St. Mary, perched on an outcropping high above the shore, is surrounded by a narrow graveyard built into the cliffside, and it's steeple reaches impossibly high into the clear blue sky. As you set foot on the dock and enter the town itself, you pass another old church, and a historic structure which the only road through town passes directly through, before arriving at the town square. We arrived just before the start of their busy season and many hotels and shops had not yet opened for the year, leaving the sidewalks and streets mostly empty and therefore it truly felt as if we'd arrived in a village suspended in time.
Our hotel, the 100 year-old Gasthof Zauner, sat tucked away at the top of the square, insulated from both heat and cold by the surrounding buildings and a thick layer of sprawling ivy. To reach the rooms you pass through the bustling hotel restaurant, where antiques are displayed across high shelves around the perimeter of the room, and the twisting branches of the ivy outside crawl through one window and back out another. We carried our luggage up three flights of stairs to our pine-panelled room at the end of the hall on the top floor. Through a large window across the back of the staircase, a waterfall tumbled down from high in the woods above, and photographs of Herr Zauner, the hotel's owner and a famed Alpine mountaineer, adorned the walls. Our room was very similar to our hotel room in Zermatt: fluffy white eiderdown on the bed, hand cut wooden furniture that matched the walls, and a balcony that offered a sweeping Alpine view. Because it was the top floor, the ceiling slanted with the slope of the roof, and one of the many cats that wandered through the narrow walkways and highwire wooden bridges would occasionally ascend from the neighboring rooftop and visit our balcony.
We changed and had dinner in the restaurant downstairs, feasting on an amazing fish caught that morning out in the Hallstattersee and prepared by the hotel's owner.
After dinner we went for a walk on the moonlit lakefront, resting on a dockside bench and gazing up at the church, which glowed softly in the moonlight beneath a million twinkling stars.
The famous Hallstatt salt mine, the oldest in the world, with its nearly vertical funicular ascent, was not yet open for the season, so we spent the next two days hiking around the town and shopping in the stores that had opened early. I bought handcarved wooden tops for my mom, and Jonas purchased a mechanical pencil handcarved from a section of centuries-old salt mine pipeline wood. We walked to the furthest edge of both ends of town, out to a lakeside park where we walked a sagging plank over a shallow lagoon, through a quiet neighborhood of wooden cottages seperated by a babbling brook (which we joked were the suburbs of Hallstatt), and up precariously positioned staircases that led to an overlook pull-off from the highway. From that point, where the road emerged from a mountain tunnel just long enough for a row of parking spaces and a sweeping view of the valley below, we followed a steep pathway that twisted up past quaint homes perched on the mountainside into the treeline. A couple switchbacks higher and we found ourselves at a gazebo built into the cliffside, where we rested and listened to the quiet sound of the wind blowing softly through the pine trees. We continued on until we reached a bend in the road, where a smaller trail connected to a green metal catwalk, that clung to the rock wall and curved into a narrow footbridge across the gorge. Through the steel grate panels of the bridge, the roaring waterfall rushed beneath our feet and plummeted down the ravine toward the village far below.
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