A Day in Hallein, Austria

  If you have an itch to head out of Salzburg and see more touristy sights, the city of Hallein is perfect. It is a short journey by train out of Salzburg, at the train station you pick up the bus that heads up the mountain, I believe it was the number 41. (The city has kindly placed a map of the local attractions on a board across the street from the train station that also has fliers to help guide you.) The bus ride only takes a few minutes, I think it was 3 miles, and we got off at the stop with the Salt Mine sign- pretty easy. Now to enjoy the Salt Mines I had to take a deep breath, put on my “I’m a tourist and am ok with that” button and head to stand in line for a ticket. If you are traveling with your family there is a discount ticket so weigh the price options. You get your ticket, and then follow the trail into the visitor center style building to wait for your time. Then you are ushered downstairs to surrender your bags to the coat check and to get dressed in white coveralls. You then board a mini train that is just a long beam that you sit on to be ridden down into the mine. 
  The tour is nicely done with video stops, points of interest and a tour guide who will provide details in multiple languages. The tunnels have all been widened for tourists but it still feels tight in places and the air is a bit hard to breath. It was two hours of enjoyable touristing as we had to slide down slides in two portions (never fear- they have cameras set up to snap your photo much like the rides in Disneyland) but it was a pretty cool and memorable experience.

  With your mine ticket you also get entrance to the Celtic Village that is just across from the mine. This was a fun stroll- many buildings have interactive materials which made it very enjoyable for my son. You can practice a little leather working, grind some grains on an old grinding wheel, and even play a little dress up. It is a well thought out exhibit with staff who are knowledgeable and friendly. It isn’t very big but I imagine villages weren’t very big. 

  If you get back on the bus still heading up the mountain from the Salt Mines- you can go one more stop and find yourself at the summer tobogganing (ski lodge) location. There were no lines so we could quickly grab a ticket and be on the chair lift heading to the top. Now again, this is a touristy day and you just have to suck it up as the ticket seems a big expensive. It cost right around 50E for the three of us to take the ride (and of course we all decided to go a second time). At the top of the lift is a restaurant with great views if you are ready to stop and have a snack. The toboggan ride is straightforward and fun. Push forward to go and pull back on the handle to stop. There are some curves that you need to slow down at but the track is well marked. It was really fun as you could get going good and fast. While it is one of the longest tracks in the region, it is so much fun that it feels like it goes quickly and you will probably want to give it a go a second time. They did give us a slight price break on the second ride. 

  We arrived too late to have time to use our ticket to also gain free admittance to the Celtic Museum which is housed back down in town, but it would have been great to go take a peek if we could have. 

  I suggest planning to spend a full day that can easily be filled with: Salt Mine tour, Celtic Village stroll, summer tobogganing and the Celtic museum. Hallein is a nice city on the river. We strolled the streets looking in shop windows and settled on a charming café for breakfast that overlooked a stream. We had to visit over the course of two days as we came the first time on a rainy day- which was perfect to go down a mine tour, but made the summer tobogganing a no-go as the sleds can’t run on a slick track. My son had seen the Rick Steve’s tour of Austria when prepping for the trip and he had put summer bobsledding as his number one pick of things to do- so we happily returned on a sunny day to throwourselves down the mountain. Hallein didn’t disappoint on either occasion.