A day trip to Hallstatt
All the good things in life are made spontaneously. Or at least many of them. So it was with our spontaneous trip to Hallstatt. At the time of our arrival, there were only few local tourists there – which is very atypical for places like this. The reason was, that in this summer it was not possible for many foreign tourists to travel due to Covid restrictions. So it was kind of a lucky shot, during a not so lucky travel period. Living in south of Germany, Hallstatt is only a few hours drive away, so it was a perfect day trip to go on a weekend.
The village itself is a small, charming town in the Austrian Alps, which personally reminded me of Hogsmeade from Harry Potter. All the architecture is something like out of a storybook with its charming old houses, little alleys, majestic mountain peaks along the beautiful lake Hallstätter See.
Hallstatt is one of the World Heritage Sites in Austria and is unfortunately an area of overtourism in non-covid times. During our visit there we learned that nearly 800.000 tourists are coming each year to this area. This may not seem that much at first site, but considering this small village has an area of just 14,5 km² and has just 750 residents, it is a huge number. This equals about 2200 people per day.
Village size in km²
14.5
Number of residents
750
Yearly number of tourists
800000
My personal take-aways: as the village is very small, a day trip sightseeing tour is fully adequate. There are some charming souvenir shops, offering mainly salt articles (surprise! 😉). Here is the why: in Hallstatt you can find the oldest salt mine in the world which is definitely worth a visit when you are staying longer. But as I’m personally not into consumption, I spent not so much time in local shops. What I am more curious about is the local kitchen. Being a vegan is a challenge itself at some places, but here we could find a little pizzeria with vegan menu options (for sure not the typical Austrian style) but with an amazing atmosphere.
