Austria is currently open for EU countries and a few select countries with low covid cases.  Unfortunately this still means friends and family back in America are not allowed to visit yet, but fingers crossed, within the next month they will open the border to Americans. I will provide a few links giving the latest information regarding Americans traveling to Austria… here, here and here.

For us, the reopening means this weekend we finally got to eat in a restaurant for the first time in 7 months and stay at a hotel to celebrate Eric’s birthday. There are some weekends you wish would never end. This was one of them. The festivities started on Friday morning: Eric’s birthday! We both took the day off work and had breakfast in a cafe down the street from us. Later that afternoon we rented a boat and took the dogs out on the water.

There is a local boat rental shop down the esplanade in Gmunden. There are several boats ranging from the classic pedal boat to an electric boat with a protective sun canopy to more luxurious models. The E-boat only goes about 2 mph and says it would take about 4 hours to ride around the entire Traunsee. Charlie and Daisy are both anti-water, but after a few minutes, they settled down and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Friday evening we had dinner at a local tiki hut called Tapaletta! This was our first actual restaurant we ate at since arriving in Austria and a 5 minute walk from our house.

Saturday, we drove to Hallstatt for the 2nd time and spent the night. We arrived around 930am and started our morning at the Dachstein Ice Cave.  The tour was all in German and Eric and I are not far enough in our language classes to understand what was being said.  

Pack Mama tip: Download the free English audio guide prior to the tour and bring headphones. We did not realize there was an audio guide until after the tour was over. Oops.

While we may not know what was said during the tour, it goes without saying this cave is magnificent. During the 50 minute tour, we saw a few light shows projected onto the ice and crossed a suspension bridge.

After the ice cave, we headed back into town towards the Hallstatt Salt Mine. The mine is the oldest and longest salt mine in the world. The salt mine has a 7,000-year history, making it the oldest salt mine in the world. There is evidence of people living and mining salt as far as 5,000 B.C. This time we had the English guide downloaded, but our tour guide was kind enough to do the tour in German AND English.

Pack Mama tip: Get there first thing in the morning, otherwise you will be waiting a long time to start the tour. We waited in line for about 50 minutes.

You ascend to the salt mine using a funicular or a mountainside railway. After reaching the top, walk 15 more minutes up to the start of the salt mine tour. Everyone has to put on oversized miner clothes to protect your normal clothes from getting ruined. The highlights of the salt mine tour for us was seeing the oldest staircase in the world and the two “miner-slides”. Watch the video to see Eric and myself sliding down. The 2nd slide is a 60-meter-long slide and you really pick up speed.

After the tour, walk the 15 minutes back down the hill and you reach the bridge which takes you to the free-floating skywalk 360 meters above the UNESCO World Heritage town of Hallstatt.

Once the tour was over, we headed to our hotel just steps away from the iconic Hallstatt postcard spot. The Hallstatt Hideaway is awarded by National Geographic Travellers Luxury Collection 2008 - 1 of only 179 Hotels worldwide. The Austrian empress Maria Theresa built the house in 1740 and was renovated in 2014. This weekend was their reopening and we were the first guests to after they closed in 2020 from covid.