Ah, Hallstatt.  Ever since I saw it on a Rick Steves episode I’ve loved it.  It checks off all the Quaint Mountain Lake Village boxes on the checklist:

• It’s quaint
• It has mountains
• It has a lake
• It’s a village

Ok, so it’s not the most comprehensive checklist ever, but the point is the same: Hallstatt is great.

Hallstatt

Read on past the jump for another random tale from Slovenia and more pictures!

After I was done taking pictures of Lake Bled, I left the town of Bled and drove to a really small town nearby called Vrba.  One of our close family friends’ last names are Vrba, so I wanted to stop and get some pictures around the town.  I stopped, parked, and saw this church:

St. Mark’s Church, Vrba

I’m a Christian and enjoy seeing churches abroad, as I think it’s always good to realize the unity of faith across countries, so I wanted to go take a look.  There was a big sign that pointed towards the church, so I walked where it was pointing, down a dirt road.  Then a Slovenian farmer stormed out a door and blocked my way, yelling at me.  Just like the cops in Bled, I don’t think he was yelling “HEY WELCOME TO VRBA LET ME SHOW YOU THE CHURCH”.  Again, it’s my fault for not learning Slovene before I left, but I actually didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong this time.  I pointed at the church and gestured with my camera.  The farmer was yelling “private! private!”.  He then (and I’m not kidding) walked over to a random spot in the middle of this dirt road and pointed down to a dot in the road that couldn’t have been more than 10cm across.  He pointed at it and repeated “private!”.  I pointed at the MUCH LARGER sign about 5 meters away that said “Church” (in Slovene) and was pointing to this road.  The guy kept yelling, so I didn’t worry about it.  I almost snapped a picture of him just to spite him (very un-Christian of me I know), but refrained.  At that point, I just chuckled and walked away.  The farmer actually followed me about 100 meters up the road, almost to my car, talking about I have absolutely no idea what.

Oh, Slovenia…

On to Hallstatt

Anyway, from Vrba I hopped on the nearest autobahn and made my way north into Austria.  Once I crossed the border, everything felt less hilarious, but that was ok.  I made it into Hallstatt around lunchtime, and the views were great.

Hallstatt

Lake Hallstatt

Hallstatt is very walkable.  The town square is nice and there are plenty of restaurants in the town center.  Bear in mind they’re all overpriced, but that’s kinda what you get coming to a popular tourist place like this.

Hallstatt town centre

I’ve been here a few other times, but never in the fall/winter, so everything had a bit of a sparse look to it, but, like Bled, the clouds made it seem more medieval.

Everywhere I went there were families walking the town and taking in the scenery, which always makes me happy, so I just found a bench and people watched for a while.

Feed them geese

As I made my way back to my epic rental car, I saw a swan scowling at me, but scowling at me majestically.

Majestic Swan Glare (that’d be a great name for a rock band)

Then there was this guy who also kind of glared at me.

Glaring Mountain Village Guy

As I bade farewell to Hallstatt, I pulled over at a nice overlook of the lake and grabbed a picture of my EPIC rental car for this journey: the Citroen DS3.

Looking all nice and Citroeny

It felt a bit like a clown car, but it had great GPS and great connectivity with my iPhone, so no complaints here.  I wish it would’ve gone faster, the autobahn would’ve been more fun.

Anyway, go to Hallstatt!  It’s very worth the visit, any time of year.  It’s been continually inhabited since before the Romans so there’s plenty of history to experience (especially the salt mines above the town).  Combine history with successful completion of the Quaint Mountain Lake Village Checklist and you have yourself a winner of a town.

Have you been to Hallstatt?  What did you think?