I guess we need to talk about Hallstatt! Yes, it’s every bit as beautiful as the photos but what the travel guides don’t tell you is that it’s also teaming with tourists. I wouldn’t say it’s overrun, but it’s more than what is comfortable. To get away from them, we spent vast amounts of time in the electric boats you can hire at Hallstatt and most lake towns in the Salzkammergut Austrian lakes district.
You can read more about the electric boats in Toucan’s Tips for Kids, where Captain Grobbler tells of his expeditions. For grownups, these electric boats are pretty good, you can hire them in Hallstatt, Grundlsee, St Wolfgang, Unterach and probably at almost all the lakes in the Salzkammergut lake district. You don’t need any form of license or boating experience, just half a brain and you can spend a few hours out in these boats. The first couple of days in Hallstatt we probably spent 6 hours on them, they go about as fast as your Nana, so you can’t get into too much trouble unless you’re a complete moron, in which case you could capsize or run into the much larger Hallstatt ferry.
There’s not much else to do in Hallstatt apart from swim in the lake, have a look around the town (half a day at most) and take the Hallstatt ferry which goes around the lake, but there’s no reason to do that when you can hire your own personal boat. We did the Hallstatt Skywalk, you can either take a cable car up to the top or walk. We walked, it’s not far, about an hour up the hill, Grobbler packed a bit of wobbly so had to carry him on my back for a bit, but if your kids are active they should have no problems getting up. Might need a few rests on the way but nothing too strenuous and some nice views on the way up as well going past a house with spooky as shit skeletons in it. The actual skywalk itself is pretty awesome, not awe-inspiring, but great view looking down over lake Hallstatt and the town itself. Well worth it. There’s a restaurant up there but we went up early morning so it was closed.
Hallstatt Lake
Three days in Hallstatt is more than enough, you could probably just spend a night and 1 full day and you’d be alright. Next up we headed to Grundlsee and stopped by a few lakes on the way. First one up was St Wolgang at Wofgangsee, which has way less tourists, as do all of the other Salzkammergut lakes compared to Hallstatt. St Wolfgang was sa-weet, way less touristy although popular with locals. Again, boat hire was the order of the day, followed by a horse ride around the town (give that a miss, you’re better of just walking around the town) and then off to the next town. Before that though, apparently there’s quite a good train ride called the Schafberg Mountain Railway which takes you up about 5km to Shafberg Mountain. More info here. Unfortunately we didn’t do it, but wished we had as the horse guy told us it was pretty good. You could easily spend half a day or a day at St Wolfgang and it’d even be a good alternative to staying at the much busier Hallstatt. If we were to do it again, I’d probably spend at least a night here.
Wolfgangsee
Next up we headed to Mondsee, didn’t stop but your typical lake stuff there, and then lunch at Attersee which had a sweet grass area by the lake with jetty/pier complete with diving board and shitloads of other activities. Almost saw one toddler drown, there was a big slide there and a Dad decided to send his daughter down, she shot down like a cannon with nobody at the other end waiting, meanwhile Dad took his time rescuing her from the frigid cold water as she basically went under. He didn’t seem too concerned about it all and thought it was quite funny, which it wasn’t really – and I usually take great pleasure in having a giggle at other people’s misfortunes. It wasn’t that warm there so took a quick dip then headed to Grundlsee.
Mondsee Austria
We spent another 3 nights at the Seehotel Grundlsee which was awesome. At the top of Grundlsee (remember to check out Toucan’s Salzkammergut Map for the good spots) is a wicked area for just hanging out on the shore, which you can read more about in Toucan’s Tips. We headed down there about 9a.m and apart from a few locals having a swim, had the place to ourselves. We spent the morning there, had a quick lunch (more Wiener Schnitzel!) then walked over to Toplitzsee. It’s about a 20 minute walk through some forest. Not much there but a cafe/restaurant but it’s nice and worth going over to take a look.
Grundlsee Austria
On the second to last day we drive up to Loser Panoramastrasse, basically a mountain with some nice views. Everybody (locals) who went up there went hiking, apparently there’s a lake and better views if you hike up a bit but I didn’t do enough research and ended freezing in shorts and a t-shirt and jandals, Grobbler slipped over on some stones in the restaurant and packed a sad so couldn’t really attempt it even though jandals probably would have been ok, but not ideal. It’s worth going up, be aware you need to pay to to use the road (at the bottom), take warmer clothes, a picnic or something to eat and hiking shoes.
Loser Panoramastrasse
On the last day we drove back to Vienna, for the most part, a very scenic, easy drive and what a joy it is to drive on the Austrian motorways, most of which have no speed limit. You don’t see idiots swerving in and out at 200km/hr, what you see is responsible adults driving around 120-150km/hr safely.
Almost forgot, on the way in (driving from Prague to Linz to Vienna), we stopped at Traunsee for a dip. That lake was awesome, and we would have been happy to spend a night there as well. If you have the time, I’d spend 2-3 nights at each of the lakes and just soak up the local atmosphere and fresh air. Next time I’d be quite happy to skip the cities, drive straight to this lake district and spend a few weeks here. You might get bored depending on what your idea of a good time is, but again, if you like the outdoors, fresh air, the lake life and don’t like loads of tourists, the Salzkammergut lake district is for you.
Traunsee Austria
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