Day 5 - Hallstatt

Please excuse my prolongued silence. As usual, life got in the way. But you'll see about that later. For now, let's get this whole Austrian business out of the way.

Day 5 wasn't terribly exctiting. It rained most of the time, so walks were short, but we still got to see some interesting things.
First off, a trip to the neighbouring town of Bad Goisern, to see the final leg of a unicycle downhill competition. Yes, unicycle. Downhill. On gravel. Defies gravity and the limits of awesome.
We all left there wanting a unicycle for ourselves. Those people were so cool, and their sense of balance is out of this world.
In the city, another lot of ladies casually wearing their traditional garb. There were many shops selling these outfits, for men, women and kids:
View from the supermarket parking lot. See that ridge in the cliff? That's Ewige Wand, we were supposed to go out there too, but the weather prevented it.

The afternoon was filled with a hike through the mountains, aiming to see a waterfall and discovering 5! The pics I took of them are not so hot, but the views and the general feeling of the place were great.

(New) shoe pic:
You can't but be ecstatic in Hallstatt, even on a rainy day. Look at this prettiness overload:

Hallstatt - day1

Day 1 began in a way that was to set the tone for the rest of the week. Too excited to sleep , we got up at 6:30. We soon realized that meant 5:30am local time. Oh well, at least there was nobody on the playground at that time. So the obvious choice was to sample swings from yet another country.

Ahh, nothing like swinging in your pjs at 5am!
Especially when you have this view:

With that crossed off the list, breakfast was carefully avoided so as not to rouse the other inhabitants of the camping ground, and an orientation walk through the town was also crossed off the list. Come to think of it, the catchphrase of the entire holiday was "nevermind, we'll eat when we come back".

The town looks like this. I'm pretty sure in months to come I will spend many motionless minutes staring at this picture.
It was great to walk around at that time, there was complete silence and not a tourist in sight.

Later that morning the sleepyheads joined the group and we went on the first trek, on a path above the town, following the course of a very long waterfall all the way up to the historic salt mine.

This is just a segment of the waterfall that starts 1600m up the mountain and falls in the town centre.

The town from above:
The trek leads you to the site of the Hallstatt necropolis. It always fascinates me to be in a place where the presence of ancient peoples is so strongly felt. The spot where the first grave (of over 2000) was found now holds a reconstruction of that grave, inside a small black boxy building.
On the ceiling, a movie was projected, enabling you to see through the eyes of that skeleton: the burial, and later, in the 1800s, the archaeological discovery.
The necropolis site is now shaded by this bridge, built for the sole purpose of offering tourists a better view of the lake. Of course it had to have a glass elevator! And of course they made me go in it twice!

~To be continued, in a logical sequence, with day 2 ~

Yup, still winter

Do you guys remember the waterfall in this post? It has had a complete winter makeover!
And this is the stream leading up to the waterfall. That's a novel concept: "I climbed a river today!"
Otherwise, nothing new. Winter continues.