July 3 - Train to Salt Mine and Saltzburg, Austria

Thursday
We have train days on our Eurail Pass for July 6, 7, 8, 9, and two more days for our time here in St. Johann's, so we decided to use one today. We went to the Salt Mine at Hallein/Durrenberg near Salzburg. This was a well-designed and fun and easy tour.
The first thing required was to put on "chic" white drawstring pants and "jackets," and tuck the jackets into the pants, which we did amid many giggles. We looked like convicts or P.O.W.'s.


Then we straddled seats on a kind of tram, which took us into the mine tunnels. We walked awhile inside the mine, and then we slid down two long wooden slides, again amid giggles and gasps.
The salt was first mined here by the Celts in 500 B.C. The salt was the reason for the growth of the area, and funded many building projects between the 1500's and 1800's. The Celts and the Austrians first chopped the salt rocks out and brought them to the surface to be heated, dissolved, and poured into wooden kegs to harden. Each salt pillar weighed 120#. It took a strong man to carry them. Later, a way was discovered to melt the rocks in a lake inside the mine and pump out the brine (27% salt). The mine is a constant 10 degrees Celsius with constant natural ventilation. Actors for prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich and his clumsy page showed how the selfish prince lived luxuriously because of the salt mines.
A model of a Celtic village has been assembled above the mine. It was interesting to learn more about this early civilization. Their burial mounds can still be seen in the area.
We took the bus back to Hallein and caught the train to Salzburg, where we took a city tour and saw many of the places where parts of The Sound of Music movie were filmed. We stopped at the lake in front of Leopold's palace.



The gazebo and the scene where the children fell in the lake were filmed here. We had missed this in 2001 when we lost the bike path, and I had especially wanted to see it. The gazebo has been moved to a new location and now closed to the public because people were always trying to dance around on the benches, like in the movie. One girl even broke her leg. Peggy was a bit embarrassed to remember that she had tried such a thing at the gazebo in Bad Mergentheim! Parts of the movie were actually filmed at countless locations in and around Salzburg. The gardens behind the Schloss Mirabell (built by Archbishop Dietrich for his mistress, Salome and their children) are beautiful and were also used for parts of the movie.

The city tour was very interesting, but the air-conditioner didn't cool the back of the van very well and it was a very hot day.
Salzburg has 150,000 people and 6 million tourists each year, and is a center for culture and the arts.
We took a hot train ride home and made plans for a train trip and housing in Budapest, Hungary on Sunday when we check out of this time share.