Salzkammergut

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Thursday morning we had booked a driver to collect us from our apartments at 9.30am and take us to the airport, to catch a flight to Munich. On landing at Munich, we headed to our hire company only to find our VW Golf Diesel Hatch that we had booked was now unavailable due to our later arrival. I advised the Customer Service Assistant that we had confirmed our flight number online with their company, which she checked. Result. Upgrade to a virtually brand new Ford Focus Station Wagon, with just 353 klms on the clock. Great car to drive, very fuel efficient and plenty of room for our luggage.



We headed for the Salzkammergut, which is a region of Austria stretching from the city of Salzburg eastwards along the Austrian Alpine Montains and the Northern Limestone Alps to the peaks of the Dachstein Mountains. The name Salzkammergut literally means "Estate of the Salt Chamber" and derives from the Imperial Salt Chamber, the authority charged with running the precious salt mines of the Habsburg Monarchy. Salt was a highly sought after commodity during the Habsburg Monarchy, and it brought them great wealth. Arriving at our accommodation on the lake in St Wolfgang, after driving in rain much of the way, we checked in and made our way straight to the restaurant for dinner after a long day travelling.



The next morning offered the best prospects for weather during our time in St Wolgang, so we drove into the town of St Wolfgang to catch the famous Schafberg Cog Railway up to the top of the Schafberg (1,783 m). We had seen the railway on one of the Great Railway Journeys of Europe, and thought we had to do this if we get the chance. The Cog Railway is a one metre gauge cog railway with a total length of 5.85 km, gaining about 1,200 m in height difference. Railway operation commenced in 1893, and it is the steepest steam Cog Railway operating in Austria.



We started out in cloudy weather at St Wolfgang, however, by the time the train had climbed two thirds up the Schafberg, the weather had closed in and there was snow all around. When we alighted from the train at the top of the mountain, it was well below freezing, with icicles covering plants, timber, even a telescope. We walked up to the top of the mountain and braved it out until the next train arrived, then travelled back down to St Wolfgang. Fortunately we had our snow jackets on.



After eating lunch, we drove to the nearby town of Bad Ischl. Bad prefixing a German town, means that it is a Spa, or Thermal Water Town. After walking through the town, we found the Zauner Cafe and Cake Shop, which has been in operation since 1832. The cafe had pretty amazing cakes and with the weather being on the cool side, it called for a cup of coffee to warm us up (along with one of their specialty cakes).



Today is our final day in St Wolfgang, and the last item we needed to see was unaffected by weather. This was the Altaussee Salt Mine, which is Austria's largest active salt mine. The mine was first mentioned in documents in 1147 AD, when mining was done by the Rein Monastery near Graz, but there is evidence that salt has been extracted from these mountains since about the 7th century BC.



During the waning days of WWII, diehard Nazis discovered the Salzkammergut region, with its Alpine remoteness being the perfect hideout. They built labor camps in nearby Ebensee to work on their secret missile program. The Nazis also funnelled stolen art into this salt-heavy, pastoral region, including one of Europe's finest art works, Jan van Eyck’s 15th century Ghent Altarpiece, called The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, which puts focus on the central panel of the 12-panel work.



The altarpiece had taken a very long journey. Sent to the Pyrenees Chateau de Pau for wartime safekeeping, it was stolen by Dr. Ernst Buchner, director of the Bavarian state museums and transported to Paris, then to Castle Neuschwanstein, where it was treated by a conservator before eventually being sent on to Altaussee. There it was stored underground in the salt mine with other works by the likes of Michelangelo, Dürer, Rubens, and Vermeer.



With the war winding down and Germany on the wrong side of it all, eight airplane bombs were ordered to be crammed into the mine shaft to destroy the cache of art by the SS Obergruppenfuhrer, August Eigruber. Miners and the Austrian resistance, with the help of a commando team lead by Albrecht Gaiswinkler, secretly removed the bombs from the salt mine, thus managing to thwart the destruction of the works until the Allied Third Army arrived at Altaussee to secure the mine. This was the true story behind the recent film, the Monuments Men. Robert K. Posey and Lincoln Kirstein began the process of excavating the art, including the Ghent Altarpiece, which Posey personally delivered to Ghent.



The salt mine was the ideal storage place for valuable artworks. Altausee Salt Mine was remote, it had a railway that ran deep into the tunnel, the depth of the mine protected the artworks from bombing, and the salt in the mine preserved the paintings.



Our tour guide led us 700 metres underground through a narrow tunnel, single file. The tunnel opened up first into the mine temple, and after a short discussion, continued on to the storage area where the Nazis had actually hidden the artworks. All of the original shelving and Verboten signs were still on the doors to storage area. The artworks were held in storage on Adolf Hitler’s orders, waiting for construction of his “Fuhrer Museum” in Linz.



After listening to the story of how these irreplaceable artworks were nearly destroyed by crazed Nazis, we exited the salt mine by sliding down two levels of the mine on wooden “miners slides”. We walked out of the mine, marking it as one of the highlights of our holiday thus far, having made plans to visit the Altaussee Salt Mine prior to leaving Australia.



After leaving Altaussee Salt Mine, we called in at a small town called Bad Aussee to get a photo with the sign. Being close to probably our favourite village in Europe, Hallstatt, we drove into the town and had some difficulty finding a car park. On our first visit to Europe in 2011, we had stayed in a relatively quiet Hallstatt and loved the town. Walking down the main street, we found it difficult to move for the hordes of tourists walking towards us in mass tour groups. Disappointed with how our quiet little idyllic village had changed, we decided not to stay for lunch, and headed back to our car. On speaking with the one of the locals, I asked him what had happened to change Hallstatt from the quiet little town we had known.



He advised that the China Minmetals Mining Group had built a replica village of Hallstatt in Luoyang Boluo County, China and named the village Hallstatt, in 2012, and since then, an average of 90 busloads of tourists from China a day are visiting the real Hallstatt in Austria.



We were looking for a quiet cup of coffee alongside the lake, so we headed back to St Wolfgang, where we found a glass enclosed cafe right on the water serving coffee and cake, with great views over the lake to the snow capped mountains. We finished off our visit to the Salzkammergut by eating dinner at the restaurant at our hotel on the lake for the third night in a row. The food was excellent and the service was second to none.

Off to Czech Republic tomorrow, to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cesky Krumlov.

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