Cameron’s Travels

My parents once lived in Basel, Switzerland. They remember that the last tram of the night — which picked up all manner of drunks, weirdos, and ne’er-do-wells as it passed through town — was nicknamed the Lumpensammler…roughly, “Collector of Dirty Rags.” Sometimes when I leave a country, I have a few leftover bits and pieces that I haven’t yet shared on my blog, but are worth seeing the light of day. And so, here’s my hodgepodge Lumpensammler list for this visit to Austria.

Salzburg: Defiantly Traffic-Free. Salzburg’s Old Town is beautifully pedestrian-friendly — and that’s because it’s brutally car-unfriendly. The city got fed up with people flouting its traffic restrictions, so they installed a series of ruthless rising bollards that are designed to essentially destroy the car of anyone who dares to slip through behind another vehicle. One day on Mozartplatz, I heard a terrible crunching sound, and looked over just in time to see an unlucky car get totaled: The hydraulic bollard slowly and insistently rose, tearing apart the engine from underneath. Four different types of automotive fluids went running down the street toward the river, and the driver had to stand there and wait, in shame, for the tow truck to come rescue him. Later, I had a revealing conversation about this with a local. Expressing my sympathy for the driver, I was met with steely resolve. “But you don’t understand,” she protested. “We have to keep unauthorized cars out. People were sneaking in.” My pleas for some intermediate solution — one that would be taken seriously without actually damaging violators’ property — got zero traction. So, motorists heading for Salzburg: You have been warned. Salzburgers love their draconian bollards.

Salzburg Parties with Fish on a Stick. Salzburg is a city that loves to celebrate. There are festivals nearly non-stop. When I was there, one of the main squares was lively with an open-air concert series for several days. My evening routine was strolling past the square to see who was performing, and to grab a little street food. It was fun to see all of the festival-goers in their Drindls and Lederhosen. But one local delicacy I’ve never quite acquired a taste for is Steckerlfisch: grilled mackerel on a stick.

Camouflaged Corporations. Austria has strict regulations for advertising along its historic drags. That means big companies have to get creative about displaying their logos. In Innsbruck and Salzburg, the golden arches fit (more or less) subtly into the historic signs.

Salzburg: Home of Mozart, The Sound of Music…and Red Bull. In the 1980s, Dietrich Mateschitz founded Red Bull in Salzburg. Today the energy drink magnate is Austria’s richest man (net worth: more than €10 billion) and employs 10,000 people. Mateschitz owns several sports teams (ice hockey, car racing, and multiple soccer teams) and collects airplanes, race cars, and other expensive vehicles. He’s opened his own private hangar (called Hangar-7, across the runway from Salzburg’s airport) to the public. Anyone is invited to come for free and wander through his toys. While most visitors — more interested in the austerity of Fräulein Maria — find this a borderline-grotesque display of wealth, gearheads love it.

I love Hallstatt. And with each visit, I find even more ways to enjoy it. Here are a few tips (which are going into the upcoming edition of our Rick Steves Vienna, Salzburg & Tirol guidebook) that I picked up on my latest trip.

I’m a stickler for eating well. (Not necessarily expensively…just well.) I see each meal as an opportunity to create a memory. And in Hallstatt, I enjoyed a twofer: delicious lake fish with grand lake views. This is the little gravel-covered pier at Gasthof Simony’s restaurant — one of a few fine options along the village lakefront. I was in town during an early-summer cold snap. Not every restaurant had their outdoor seating open, but I was perfectly comfortable in my down vest. In these situations, it’s fine to ask politely if you can sit outside. And when it’s this uncrowded, you can pretty much take your pick of tables. This one will do nicely…

One of my favorite experiences in Hallstatt was riding the funicular up to the mountaintop above town, where they’ve opened a new panoramic viewpoint. You can tiptoe out onto this “Skywalk” and stand high above the village and the glorious Hallstättersee — immersed in 360 degrees of alpine splendor.

After enjoying the viewpoint (and touring Hallstatt’s newly updated salt mine experience), I hiked all the way back down to town on the loooong, steeply switchbacked trail you see in this photo. It was a knee-challenging, vertigo-inducing 45-minute hike…and worth every step.

The salt mine that gave rise to Hallstatt 7,000 years ago is still in operation. And partway down the hillside, at the entrance to an abandoned mine shaft, a poignant little monument honors retiring miners — who hang up their hardhats, permanently, on their last day of work. Each one is labeled with a date and the words letzte Grubenfahrt — “last descent into the mine.”

Farther down, the trail passes over a waterfall as it tumbles out of the mountain — offering a unique perspective on Hallstatt’s mostly vertical stream.

From Hallstatt, I side-tripped to the Dachstein mountain area (about a 10-minute drive away). A cable car whisked me high above the clouds, then I hiked even higher to reach these permanently frozen ice caves. On the frigid but fascinating tour, I clambered through countless caverns and saw many dramatic formations.

The Dachstein cable car continues even higher, to the rooftop of the Salzkammergut — ringed by other snow-covered peaks.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed the Dachstein experience, but I’m not convinced the side-trip was worth the investment of time and money. Hallstatt’s own little lift (mentioned above) brings you not only to a fine viewpoint, but also to a fun salt-mine tour that’s basically redundant with the ice caves. If you’re tight on time, choose either Hallstatt’s salt mines or the Dachstein ice caves — and for my money, Hallstatt is the better value.

Buzzing along the glassy surface of a glacial lake, feeling the bright summer sun on my face and the wind in my hair, I suddenly realize I’m enjoying my favorite moment of this trip so far.

I’m in — or, actually, bobbing in a plastic boat just offshore from — the tiny town of Hallstatt, in Austria’s famed Salzkammergut Lake District. Before me, the pointy Protestant church spire stands like the town flag, proudly staking its claim on the narrow ledge of land that Hallstatt occupies. With sheer cliffs on one side, the deep waters of the Hallstättersee on the other, and a mighty waterfall surging through the heart of town, Hallstatt is one of those improbable settlements that makes you wonder: What possessed someone to build a village here?

The answer is salt. Specifically, the salt deposits deep inside the mountain just above, all rolled up in a chunky granite wrapper by millions of years of tectonic activity. “Hall” comes from an old Celtic word for “salt,” making Hallstatt the “place of salt.”

But today, salt is the farthest thing from my mind. The weather is glorious, and I’ve followed the Rick Steves guidebook‘s advice and rented an electric boat. Motorized watercraft are outlawed on the lake, so rather than worry about dodging speedboats and jetskis, I just need to keep an eye on a few big, plodding paddleboats shaped like the lake’s resident swans.

My boat has two speeds — “stop” and “go.” It’s an easy way to get out on the water — and, at just €10 for up to four people to take a 30-minute ride (long enough for a scenic loop from one end of town to the other), it’s a screamin’ deal…cheaper than four rides on a Vienna tram. For the next edition of our guidebook, this tip will rocket from “consider” to “a must in good weather.”

Back on land, I stroll through wee Hallstatt. It’s a 30-second walk from the boat dock to the main square, which feels like a movie set. The gurgling fountain is ringed by an amphitheater of cozy, colorful housefronts.

At the bottom corner of the square stands a hot-pink house, peeking between two bigger buildings like an eager kid sister elbowing her way in for the view. This is Gasthof Simony, where I stayed the first time I came to Hallstatt, as a backpacker in 1999.

Well, that’s not entirely true: At first, I’d booked a room at a cheap pension on the hillside. Back then — traveling with what was one big, sprawling guidebook called Rick Steves’ Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and Oh By the Way Did We Mention It Also Includes Prague for Some Reason? — my standard procedure was to call the cheapest place in Rick’s book that had a single room. (I slept poorly in hostel dorms, but Rick always listed one or two dirt-cheap, old-school pensions where I could get a single with a shared bath for just a few schillings more.) My strategy worked great — until I hit Hallstatt and checked into my room, which simply wasn’t up to snuff. So I politely bailed out and walked down the hill to knock on Gasthof Simony’s door.

Sweet old Frau Scheutz answered, and warmly offered me a good deal on her budget single. Rick described her as “grandmotherly,” and sure enough, she helped me feel at home partway through a long journey. I still remember reading Rick’s description of the hotel as “stocking-feet-tidy.” I didn’t really know what that meant, but it felt just right…and I remember distinctly enjoying being in stocking feet, once in my room.

Gasthof Simony is still there, with its flashy new paint job. But Frau Scheutz retired several years back. And, based on my inspection, the place is still creaky and traditional, but no longer “grandmotherly” or “stocking-feet tidy.” It’s being run as an afterthought by another hotel in town.

Standing in front of the guesthouse, feeling nostalgic, I’m suddenly recognized by a fellow traveler who’s seen my picture on Rick’s website and books. (Trust me, this does not happen often.) He had his mother are on an epic journey through Eastern Europe — pausing for just a night here on their way between Český Krumlov and Slovenia’s Lake Bled. He tells me that, like me, he stood in this very spot 20 years ago. And he’s stuck at how similar things still are. “Except there used to be cars parked all along this square,” he says.

Bidding farewell to my one and only fan, I think a bout how Hallstatt hasn’t changed…and how it has. Yes, on the surface it’s still the same wonderful old place. But overall, I sense a  creeping corporatization of Hallstatt.  Three of the classic old hotels on this square have been purchased and remodeled by big-city investors. Updating the hotels for our guidebook, I grow concerned when I’m told that jolly old Herr Zauner — who always wore lederhosen like pant were never invented — has passed the management of his hotel on to his son. The rooms have been modernized, and the prices raised accordingly. As I probe for more details, the receptionist reassures me: “Oh, don’t worry, Herr Zauner still hangs out here at dinnertime. And he still loves telling all of his old mountaineering stories.”

I’m glad Herr Zauner still makes an occasional appearance. And he’s certainly earned a restful retirement. But the glamification of Hallstatt concerns me. Yes, the town’s rehabbed hotels are able to more efficiently process the tour groups that pour through town. And for some travelers — who appreciate reliable plumbing, speedy Wi-Fi, and room service — that’s a good thing. But for me, it’s at least as much a loss as it is a gain. I worry that Hallstatt is no longer a locally owned town of quirky villagers who run creaky old guest houses on the side. It’s a tourism machine with a veneer of quaint.

Seeking the Hallstatt of yore, I stroll toward the far end of town — and quickly find it. I’m lost in a rustic world of wooden lakefront houses. Hallstatt has a special smell: damp, moss-covered rocks and heavy timbers. Like summer camp.

Lost in an olfactory flashback, I pop out at Hallstatt’s postcard viewpoint: a little gap in the houses with perfect views back on the town and its mammoth mountain backdrop. I snap the same picture I take every time I’m here (but this time, with a better camera).

On my way back to town, I detour to the Catholic Church up on the ridge, with its lovingly tended, fresh-flower-bedecked cemetery. This tiny hamlet has only so much space for graves, so traditionally, after a certain period of time the dead were “evicted” and their bones neatly stacked in a chapel. Each skull is lovingly painted with the name of the person who once filled it.

Surveying the macabre but strangely touching scene, I notice clusters of shared family names: Steiner. Kierchschlager. Heuschober. Binder. All still together, beyond death. (Hope you like your in-laws.) It’s a poignant — and eerily tangible — chronicle of a tight-knit community that’s changing faster than these people would ever have imagined.

Stepping outside, I see a crew digging a fresh grave at a centuries-old headstone. And as I walk through the tombstones, I notice several death dates in the last few years. I begin to wonder whether some of the people I met back on that first visit might be permanent residents here now. At first, the thought makes me sad. But then, looking at the sweeping views over the church tower, the glassy lake, and the glorious Alps, I realize that if that’s the case, then that’s exactly as it should be.

Change though Hallstatt may, old traditions die hard. And — tourists and big-city investors be damned — the people of Hallstatt will always belong to the soil of their hometown, enjoying this gorgeous panorama, for eternity…or, at least, until they’re dug up to make way for the next generation.