Hallstatt Salt Mine
Our fourth day, also as a part of the bus tour took us to the Hallstatt Salt Mine, which was an experience to say the least. To begin with, two tour groups were combined, one of which was made up of Chinese tourists with a translator. Having so many people would become a real issue on many occasions, the first of which occurred right at the beginning, as the total number people in the combined group exceeded the seating capacity for the mine rail cars you had to ride into the mine on. These cars required visitors to face forward by straddling the long bench mounted on the cars, so your knees went past the person in front of you on either side and then the person behind you was pressed up so close to you that you could feel their legs against your backside. Then on two occasions when having to view a film sitting down there weren't enough seats. While making our way through the mine, our tour guide was giving us history and details about the mine, but you could barely hear him and on several occasions the translator would talk over him to her group, very distracting.
BUT........the biggest issue for me, was being in the midst of such a large group of people in extremely close quarters, as every time you moved or went to turnaround someone was at your back or shoving past you and let me tell if a person could suddenly develop claustrophobia, this was the kind of occasion that could bring it on. If you had gone in with the standard group size it would not have been an issue, but it was a lot of fun none the less.
So lets take a look at the positives, beginning with the slides, of which there were two, the first being shallower than the second. These are not your ordinary slides, in fact they required that we wear special overall tops and bottoms, as the slides are two wood rails that you had to straddle in pears of two or three. Dad and I did it together, it was interesting and fun the first time, but the second was exciting and scary the second, because of it's steep decline we went a "HELL" of a lot faster and went you reached the bottom, just as it level out you a big pump that make you bounce. So for anyone planning to go it is worth it, but make sure you have enough hiney padding, which made me grateful for the first time, that I am overweight!
BUT........the biggest issue for me, was being in the midst of such a large group of people in extremely close quarters, as every time you moved or went to turnaround someone was at your back or shoving past you and let me tell if a person could suddenly develop claustrophobia, this was the kind of occasion that could bring it on. If you had gone in with the standard group size it would not have been an issue, but it was a lot of fun none the less.
Pictures of the area around the mine and as we were making our way in.
So lets take a look at the positives, beginning with the slides, of which there were two, the first being shallower than the second. These are not your ordinary slides, in fact they required that we wear special overall tops and bottoms, as the slides are two wood rails that you had to straddle in pears of two or three. Dad and I did it together, it was interesting and fun the first time, but the second was exciting and scary the second, because of it's steep decline we went a "HELL" of a lot faster and went you reached the bottom, just as it level out you a big pump that make you bounce. So for anyone planning to go it is worth it, but make sure you have enough hiney padding, which made me grateful for the first time, that I am overweight!
The Slides
The confines of the mine tunnels
The Salt Lake which is 400 meters or 1312 feet underground
These are nice but they are the Hallein salt mines and not the Hallstadt ones. Of course, any city with Hall in it generally had something to do with salt.
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