Day trip from Salzburg to Hallstatt
Hallstatt is a town located in Austria, around a 1 hour drive from Salzburg. You can book onto a group tour with different companies such as trip advisor or GetyourGuide. However, you have more flexibility and freedom when hiring your own car and taking the day trip yourself.
We decided to book our hire car using https://www.sixt.co.uk . However I would use a different care hire company next time, I will explain later!
We picked up the hire car around 8:30am from the car office in Salzburg and started on our journey to Hallstatt. There are some other lakes on the route that are beautiful and we decided to add them into our itinerary.
The first lake that we stopped off at was Fuschlsee, around 30 minutes outside of Salzburg. This was probably the lake that was the quietest and is popular for people that like to cycle and walk. There are some beautiful, traditional wooden houses with flowers cascading over the balconies. There isn’t a huge amount to do at this lake, we had a short stroll and then jumped back in the car and headed to Wolfgangsee.
Wolfgangsee is a 15 minutes drive from Fuschlsee and has a larger town with many souvenir shops and restaurants/cafes. It is the largest and deepest lake in the Salzburg area. There are many hiking and walking trails around the lake that you can do. You can also sail on the lake, this is a very popular reason for locals and tourists to visit this lake. After spending some time here we then made our way to Hallstatt.
The drive to from Wolfgangsee to Hallstatt took around 40 minutes. We stopped off at a supermarket and grabbed some bits for lunch to eat when we got there.
Hallstatt is a picturesque town situated surrounded by the Dachstein mountains. The town is probably the largest out of all the ones visited during this day and a big tourist attraction. We arrived slightly later in the day, at 1pm, with the hopes that a lot of the tour groups would have been and gone. It was quite busy when we arrived but the crowds started to thin out as the afternoon went on.
There are lots of things to do here other than coming to visit the town, lake and to get the postcard picture with Hallstatt Lutheran Church in the background. When we arrived, we had our lunch and then hired a small boat to take out on the lake. It was so lovely being on the water after visiting other lakes throughout the day. We were able to boat over to the other side of the lake to get a closer view of Schloss Grub, a castle nestled behind the trees at the side of the lake.
Another thing to do in Hallstatt is to visit the salt mines, known as Salzwelten. I recommend booking tickets in advance from the official website https://www.salzwelten.at/de/hallstatt .The ticket includes the funicular up to the top, a tour of the salt mines and a visit to the skywalk. Note: The start time of your ticket is for the funicular. It cost around 43 euro per person and the salt mine tour lasts for 90 minutes. The salt mines are the oldest in the world, having been around for 7,000 years and are a UNESCO world heritage site. Before you start the tour you have to put on white overalls to protect your clothing from the mines and the damp, cold conditions. You get given a guided tour through the mines, get to slide down a log slide that the miners would use (you can opt out of this part) and you get to ride on a train at different parts of the tour! After the guided tour through the salt mines, we walked to the skywalk. The skywalk is a panoramic viewpoint of the town and lake of Hallstatt. This was a nice way to get a different view of Hallstatt.
We visited during the month of August, expecting restaurants to be open early evening to grab some dinner before we left. However, most of the town seemed to have closed and we were struggling to find somewhere to eat, it had also started torrentially raining by this point! We managed to find a restaurant on our way back to the car park and ordered a pizza and some pasta dishes, however it wasn’t the best meal. After we ate, we put on our very, very thin (!) ponchos and speed walked back to the car! I would recommend leaving Hallstatt before it gets dark. Some of the roads are very windy and lots of cars were speeding and overtaking in the rainy conditions,m it was quite scary at times. The journey back to Hallstatt takes around 1 hour 15 minutes.
We hired our car with sixt, which seemed like a top rated company. However, a few weeks after arriving back home in the UK, a letter came in the post saying that damage had been made to the car with an extorniate quote to have the car repaired! Luckily I had taken photos and a video of the condition of the car before we left it at the designated drop off point, proving that there was no damage and it wasn’t our fault. They thankfully dropped the claim.
NOTE : You can also add Mondsee to your itinerary. We didn’t visit this lake during our day but we did visit a few days later during our Sound of Music tour.