We spent the last of Czech currency on groceries and fuel and then followed the sat nav's interesting route. This took us round the end of the lake to its southern lake and then due south over the hills into Austria on a road that wasn't shown on our Europe road atlas. It was an excellent route taking us on minor road, through pretty villages and over the undulating meadow countryside with many farms with huge barns, typical Austrian scenery. Given that it was a very grey, overcast morning, we didn't expect to see views but the cloud was high enough to see a long way. This was particularly the case when, having gained considerable height since the Vodni Nadrz Lipno lake, we approached the Donau (Danube) river. Just before the descent to the river, we had a commanding view east, south and west. We quickly crossed the incredibly wide Danube and admired that watery highway – a number of large barges were plying up and down the river whilst two more were moored on the southern bank being loaded with grain. We briefly followed the river east on its southern bank before we struck of south, deeper into Austria.
Approaching Lake Traunsee, we saw a huge shape looming up, largely surrounded by clouds. It was a snow-dusted mountain on the shores of the lake and probably wasn't much higher that 2,000m but it looked enormous to us given that we had just crossed a long largely flat section of the route. It was lunch time and we stopped at a lay-by on Traunsee's shore, opposite that moody peak. The lay-by had spotless toilets complete with toilet paper, hand towels and even a bar of soap on a small mat to stop it sliding about. The was no graffiti. Clean and tidy Austria! In Britain, the toilets would have been vandalised and the soap would not have lasted one day.
Over lunch it started to rain and it continued for the next 50 minutes until we arrived in Hallstatt on the Hallstatter See lake. The campsite on the edge of the town is in a small valley bordered by steep-sided mountains and this applies to the whole of the lake, making it very picturesque even in the rain and low cloud. Here too, the recent rain had fallen as snow on the tops of the highest mountains.
We walked the short distance into the UNESCO World Heritage listed town passed the coach park with many tourist coaches in it. It was obvious why they were there, the village is extremely pretty, full of lovely wooden houses. This combined with the lake and the history of salt mining in the area attracts the tourists. In the centre of the town is a museum and, given that we had a couple of hours before it closed and it was raining, we decided to go in. One of the reasons that we wanted to come here is because of the European culture known as the 'Hallstatt Culture', approximately 800 to 500 BC. The culture was named after a very important find of remains dating back to this period in the area of Hallstatt. It is all connected with the salt deposits that have brought wealth to the area from about 1400 BC right up to the current time. Salt was mined, refined and traded over a very wide area and the wealthy 'mine masters' during the period 800 to 500 BC were buried together with rich grave goods in a cemetery close to the mines high above the current town of Hallstatt. In 330 BC a disastrous rock and mud fall covered the mine entrances and the settlements from this period and mining moved to a different area of the mountain. The cemetery, due to its position on the mountainside, survived the rock and mud fall and was found and excavated in 1846. The records of the excavation are very good and, although many of the early finds were carried away by 'tourists', there are still some very impressive finds in the museum including many swords, Celtic-style spiral fibulae and bronze vessels. Due to the preservative effects of salt, organic materials have been found dating back to between the 14th and 8th centuries BC. These include a rucksack and cap made from skins, wooden tools and patterned cloth. Fascinating!
Photos: The Traunsee Lake and its brooding mountain; A piece of modern art in Hallstatt – the story is that each Hallstatt house has a pair of Wellington Boots on its dining table in case the floods hit. The heights of past floods are shown by the markers on the left post; The prehistoric (14th to 8th century BC) backpack found in the salt mines; A view of Hallstatt and its boathouses.
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