Austria 2000

This old guesthouse has a superb location-- very near the square and right next to the beautiful Hallstatt Lake. We had a large and gorgeous room with a private bath and a shared balcony. The furniture was all made of rich wood and definitely felt different from a standard hotel room. We would spend our evenings sitting on the balcony talking with those who shared it with us and enjoying the lake views. Breakfast is included in the price of the room and there was also a convenient restaurant located out back.

Current rates for the Gasthof Simony are 22.5-37.5 Euros per person.

Hallstatt is a small village. Forces of nature have prevented it from growing more. On one side the cliffs of the Alps crowd it and on the other is a beautiful alpine lake. The train station is actually on the other side of the lake from the town. Each train is met with a boat which visitors take to get to and from the village.

We had reservations at a guesthouse recommended in Rick Steve's guidebook. It didn't take long at all to find the Gasthof Simony since Hallstatt is so small. We checked into a gorgeous room with a private bath and a shared balcony (three rooms shared it) overlooking the lake. The furniture was beautifully carved wood. Like most places we stayed, breakfast was included. Cost per night? 900 Austrian Schillings (AS) or less than $60 per night!

The first photo below is of my husband in the main square. We took this photo at 7am. We couldn't sleep so we got up and strolled the town before most people were up. You can visit Hallstatt as a day trip from Salzburg but lots of people do this so mid-day is rather crowded in town. We enjoyed the evenings and the early mornings best.

The major attractions in Hallstatt are the salt mines and the lake. We took a cruise on the lake and also took the funicular up to the salt mines and toured there. We hiked down from the salt mine and encountered a number of wonderful views.

The salt mine tour was a lot of fun. They have you change into miner's clothes and to get down into the mines you slide down banisters. On the tour we met a couple from Colorado. They had checked into our hotel that same morning and were leaving the next day just like us. We rode the train together for a while and shared e-mail addresses, etc. Meeting different people from abroad and home is one of the things we love about traveling via train.

We traveled east to Wien or Vienna. It was very warm when we arrived there and we had a bit of trouble getting oriented but eventually we found our lodgings. Vienna, like most big cities, can be a bit expensive but we found our least expensive lodgings here. Frau Budai has three rooms in her apartment listed in Rick Steve's travel guide. This would be the first time that we didn't have our own bathroom but it worked out fine. Each room has a sink and then the rooms share a single toilet room and a single shower room. It really wasn't that inconvenient since the shower and toilet are in different rooms. Frau Budai serves coffee in the morning (very strong coffee!) but no breakfast but at about $39 per night we can afford to get a little breakfast at a corner cafe.

To be honest, at first we hated Vienna. Our perceptions were influenced by the crowds, the heat, the cars, and the fatigue of travel. We couldn't find restaurants we were looking for in the Old Town but eventually found one place, the Augustiner Keller, which had very good food. Our first day in Vienna we also went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and viewed famous works of art by Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Raphael, and Brueghel. We also had some of the famous original Sacher Torte at the Sacher Cafe. I had never cared for it back here in the U.S. but it is so good when it is so fresh. We had coffee with it and learned quickly that we need to order our coffee with milk in Vienna because they make their coffee strong!

We liked Vienna a lot more after a good night's sleep and it also helped that avoided the crowds a bit by taking the U-Bahn out to the Danube River. We also enjoyed touring the Schonbrunn Palace. Fortunately our guidebook had recommended calling ahead in the morning and making reservations so we didn't have to wait for a tour. The tours are very cleverly done. They have tours that are guided by docents but they also have a tour that you take at your own pace using a type of headphone (you hold it like a regular phone receiver, it doesn't go over both of your ears). The headset they give you is for a specific language (English in our case) and it starts and stops after each room. It's really rather brilliant.

That same day we also saw the training session of the Lipizzaner Horses. To see a full show you really have to get tickets way in advance but for a small fee everyone is welcome to stop by to see the training. We still had trouble finding restaurants; in fact we thought we had found a particular restaurant and later learned we were eating at a different one. No problem, it was still a very good meal for two for under $27 including tax. Vendors sold roses that had 3 foot stems and cost under $2 for three of them!

Another budget tip we learned from our guidebook was that one can go to the Opera for only a few dollars by buying "stehplatz" tickets at the Vienna Opera House. These are standing room only seats but they cost us only about $2 each and you can still hear the singing even though the view isn't too great. It was very hot in there though so we only stayed long enough to hear the Habanera from Carmen. It's probably the most recognizable of the songs.