The One When We Got Lost In The Alps

Hallo!

Today has been another crazy full day, and A LOT OF WALKING. We started off the day with going to the salt mines. The Hallstatt salt mines are over 7000 years old! They’ve been mining salt out of it since then. And because salt preserves things, they’ve been able to find so many artifacts from as old as 1000 BC! So cool!

We took a cable car up the mountain and had to hike a bit to get to the entrance of the mine. We had to put “scrubs” on over our clothes so our clothes didn’t get ruined/dirty. We looked super stylish. After we were all dressed, we headed into the mine!

We walked down the passageway for the mine for a few minutes with this kind of creepy music that they had playing in the background. I’m not sure if they were trying to create a certain effect, but Brock, who was in front of me, said, “They really need to make this into a haunted house.” So that’s the kind of vibe it was giving. We got to the end and our tour guide told us a little about the history of the mine. It was really interesting and awesome to learn about! Especially since it wasn’t from a textbook, we were there experiencing it! Every so often, Brock and Garen would ask if they could lick the walls and if they’d taste like salt (Don’t worry, they did it… Multiple times).

They had these slides throughout the mine that would help miners get from one cavern to the next, we got to go down two! They were so fun! Some people got up to over 15 miles an hour, which is pretty crazy fast for a slide. The first one was about 25 Km long and the next was over 60km! So fun!

The whole experience was super awesome! I feel like I learned a lot, and it’s absolutely incredible what they have discovered in those mines. It has Europe’s oldest staircase dating back to 1100 BC. The salt had preserved the wood so it barely looks old! They’ve also found tools, clothing, shoes, etc. that have all been preserved.

We rode out of the mine on a little train, being college students, we decided to make it a massage train as well which was awesome. You can imagine a bunch of college students in a massage train… on a train. Epic.

We walked around the grounds of the mine for a bit, there were some incredible look out points. There was one that was a little scary to go on, but being there, you have to do it! Here are some pictures:



After we got down from the mountain, naturally we decided to climb back up another one. Our professor had told us about a waterfall about an hour out and some glacier pools that you could jump in if you want. So we got changed and set out.



There were a lot of forks in the road that we weren’t sure which way to go, so we made our best guess. … You can probably guess what happens. We ended up climbing straight up the mountain (no switchbacks) at a very intense incline. We had walked for about an hour before we questioned our direction. But we decided that it was too late to go back now so we continued forward. We came across BEAUTIFUL scenery. The incline was rough the the nature made it so worth it. We climbed all the way to the top of where the river started coming out of the mountain and decided to turn around (after taking a few pictures of course). The quote of the day for that hiking trip came from Brock who looked down into the valley, pointed to an open field saying “Look! They have a playground!” Then paused and added, “Wait… no. Those are sheep.” He had thought the sheep were children. #welcometoeurope



Before heading back down the mountain, Lizzy and Garen were determined to get into the water. We found a place that had calm enough waters and they put their feet in. They didn’t even last 30 seconds before they were out again with the reddest toes I’ve ever seen. They said that there was no way they were getting in, it was way too cold. After calling them pansies, Brock and Andrew tried. They both only lasted a minute at most.

Garen was still determined though, so he ventured back out and took off his shirt and attempted to get in, he only had sat down and decided it was too cold. He came back only to discover that he had forgotten his shirt on a rock. So, he went back out just to grab his shirt, but then surprised all of us when he fully submerged into the water!! Thankfully, I got a video of it, so we have evidence he actually did it. But he was pretty cold coming down.

The way down the mountain went a lot faster than on the way up, but I still know that I walked/hiked over 10 miles today, and I was checking the altitude and we had gone up 1000 feet from the bottom to the top of our hike! Crazy! I’m sad we missed that certain waterfall, but it was kind of fun to get lost in the alps and take our time looking at things.



You’d think that after that we’d go to our hotel room and crash, but no, we went out to tackle Hallstatt again. We wanted to go into the churches and see the Bone House, which is famous. We ate a quick dinner at one of the many restaurants and went to the bone house.

I honestly don’t know what to think about the bone house, it has over 1200 skulls in it. Like real people skulls. Each skull is decorated and has the name of the person who it had belonged to and the year they had died. Apparently it was started because they were running out of room in the graveyard, but they have basically stopped using it. The last one was put in in 1995, because the woman had requested for her bones to go there after she died. There was a weird feeling in the room that I’m not sure I liked. Pretty creepy. I’m glad to say I went there, but if I never went back to that house, I wouldn’t be mad/sad.



After all that, we finally went back to the hotel room and crashed. Ha! It was a good productive day, and Lizzy and I even did pushups at the end of the day! Haha! Love it.

I’m sad to leave Hallstatt because the last two days have been absolutely amazing, but I can’t wait to see what Salzburg and Dorfgastein has in store for us!!

Until next time!