Lake Hallstatt
The beautiful village of Hallstatt.
After leaving Salzburg, we made a stop at an organic dairy farm to give us a taste of rural Austria along with a little lesson on raising cows and making cheese. We met some beautiful cows and even bought some cheese.
The scenery at the farm (Furstenhof). How gorgeous!
When we arrived in the town of Hallstatt, Joost parked the bus and we were immediately loaded onto a boat for a cruise around the lake! Beautiful, peaceful, and great fun!
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Back on dry land, we explored the village, visiting the Protestant church, the Catholic church with its cemetery and bone house and then settled onto the steps of the fountain in the town square for a picnic lunch consisting of the cheese we had bought at the dairy farm along with some drinks and pretzels we bought at the local market. It was pleasantly warm and the perfect place for people watching!
The view of serene Lake Hallstatt, out the back of the boat.
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Town square with its fountain of the Holy Trinity.
New friends!
We finished off the day with a group dinner at our hotel. The menu featured fresh lake trout, of course!
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We left Lake Hallstatt after breakfast the next morning, headed for Mauthausen Memorial. This was a very somber experience. More than 81,000 people died here.
A very bleak sight awaited us inside those walls.
A room dedicated to listing the names of all the dead. Sobering.
In the midst of all these reminders of misery, we again had the benefit of fellow travelers helping out, pointing out elevators we hadn't noticed so that we could go to different floors in the memorial without trying to go up and down the stairs.
When we re-joined the bus, we were a much quieter and very somber group. We proceeded on to Vienna, the final leg of our journey. We would need to say goodbye to Joost. He would drop us in Vienna and then he and his bus would travel on.