Hallstatt, Austria

WOW, I think we’ve found one of our top spots. We took a two and a half our road trip over to a small town in the Austrian Alps called Hallstatt. All the hotels in the city were booked when we looked online so we ended up staying in a nearby town called Gosau. What an amazing drive to get there! The views were spectacular…right out of a movie (literally, the Sound of Music was filmed in Austrian Alps). The sun was shining and the top of every mountain was clearly visible. Couldn’t have asked for a better drive.

On the way over, we stopped for gas and then a Burger King for lunch. We went through the drive through and then parked the car to eat before getting back on the road. As we were eating Marshall looks up and sees a door to an old porta potty open with a man sitting inside yelling and spitting at people. Took a quick sec to realize it was a motion sensing funny attraction. Of course he had to run over to get a video of it (posted on my Facebook page).

We kept driving through the Austrian country side and came to the small town of Gosau. Our room had a great view of some tall mountains and a ski lift area. Once we dropped off our stuff in the room, we took Tyson to an awesome kids play room the hotel had in its first floor area. This is the first play room we’ve seen at a hotel and Tyson absolutely went crazy when he saw all the toys, an indoor slide, and all the wooden toys he could handle (train set, blocks, playhouse, etc). Afterwards we walked to the hotel next door to check out the restaurant menu and they said that they had a kids play area with a big ball pit downstairs. We couldn’t pass that up, so we took Tyson down there and he had a blast playing with Marshall in the ball pit. The boys wore themselves out so we decided to skip the restaurant that night and take the cheaper route by cooking spaghetti in our room. We hit the store and got some meat (for the boys), pasta, and bread and enjoyed our home cooked dinner.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to head to Hallstatt, about 15 mins away. The weather couldn’t have been better – blue skies and 70 degrees the entire day. The town is on a big lake that is surrounded by the Alps and is easily one of the most picturesque towns we’ve seen. We took a tram to the top of one of the mountains that the town borders to the oldest salt mine in the world that is still in operation. It was full of fields of flowers and rolling hills that had stunning panoramic views overlooking Hallstatt and the neighboring towns below. Unfortunately I lost my fake $5 Louis Vuitton sunglasses up there (I’m sure someone thought they scored the jackpot when they found them, lol). Gotta admit I was a little upset, but once I had some amazing apple strudel at the café on the top of the mountain I was all good. (Side note: Literally every single restaurant and café in Austria serves apple strudel, however, none of them even comes close to my mom’s delicious apple strudel).

We went back down to the town and walked through the main strip of town. There were lots of cafes that had patios overlooking the lake. We stopped at a couple of them to sample their food and drinks. Tyson loved watching the swans, ducks, and boats pass by as we sat soaking up the sun for a couple hours. He eventually got bored and found an area next to one of the cafes that had rocks to throw into the water. Another little boy came over to join him and they were having a blast watching the rocks splash into the water together. It was so relaxing to take some time to sit and enjoy the scenery and is exactly what we were hoping to get to experience in Austria. Anybody thinking of coming to this area has to stop by, it is simply amazing. Hallstatt is somewhere we’d consider coming to and spending an extended period of time (weeks/months) if the opportunity presented itself.

After a good six hours in Hallstatt we were worn out and ready to head back to the hotel. We took Tyson to the hotel next door that had the ball pit to play again. They also had a huge outdoor play area and since it was a beautiful day we spent an hour outside playing in the sand box, swinging, and jumping on the trampoline. We decided that we’d eat dinner at their restaurant to celebrate our last night in Austria. Tomorrow we will be driving two and a half hours back to Innsbruck to return the car and then taking a two hour train ride to our next destination.

Next stop: Munich, Germany