Solo female travel expert, focusing on travelling around a 9-5 job, getting the most bang for your buck and soft-adventure experiences.
Let’s not beat around the bush, you’ve all heard about Hallstatt by now. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t see Hallstatt proudly displayed on my Instagram feed, and rightfully so. If you’re a lover of pretty places, you need to head here.
So, after convincing my two lovely travel pals that we needed to take a trip to Hallstatt during our recent ventures to Salzburg, I was then left wondering “what actually is there to do in Hallstatt?!”
RELATED: Before you can explore Hallstatt, you’ll need to know how to get there! Read my article on accessing Hallstatt from Salzburg to find it all out!
Hallstatt Viewing Platform
As soon as we arrived in Hallstatt, we rushed over to the Hallstatt Viewing Platform. This probably wasn’t our greatest idea given that it was a seriously overcast day and later on the skies brightened up considerably. But hey-ho, you can’t stop a girl who’s obsessed with mountain views. I was getting on that funicular no matter what the weather.
I can only imagine what the view would have been like on a sunny day. If you’ve read my post about visiting Lake Bled on the foggiest day known to man, you probably think that I am cursed with bad luck when visiting the current Instagram-favourite locations – I think you’re right! I need to learn my lesson and give myself more than one day to explore these locations!
Hallstatt Salt Mines
If you’re in Hallstatt for more than a few hours, after visiting the viewing platform, you should also visit the salt mines! Unfortunately we were only in Hallstatt for a few hours (we ended up having to take a guided tour), so we didn’t have time to make a visit, but I’ve heard great things about it! We didn’t mind too much as 2 out of 3 of us had recently visited the salt mines in Krakow (which are great and I would highly recommend)!
Explore The Old Town
Once we came down from the view point, we headed to the main town centre to see where all the action lies. As with any “old town”, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is going to be stupidly beautiful. Hallstatt Old Town is filled with cute colourful decorated buildings and I could have easily spent more time just strolling around (and taking lots of pictures).
The Catholic Church, Cemetery & The Bone Church (Hallstatt Ossuary)
One of the most interesting things in Hallstatt is “The Bone Church”. Hallstatt isn’t a huge place and burial plots are sparse. The Bone Church dates back to the 12th Century and skulls would be removed from existing graves once the grave was needed for a new burial. Skulls were then painted according to the family name and also a number of personality traits. Over 600 artistically painted skulls now lie on display. The majority of the skulls are from the 18th Century but there are a few from the 20th Century.
The Bone Church is a really unique and interesting experience. The Catholic Church next door and the adjoining cemetery are also worth a visit – both very beautiful.
RELATED: If you can’t get to Hallstatt, Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic has an Ossuray too! Much larger and much more ornate, you can read all about it here!
Various Other Churches
After exploring the Bone Church, we explored the surrounding area poking our heads into various other churches and cute little shops. Everything is just so god damn cute!
Take in the pretty views
After racing around all the different sights, we spent the last portion of our short time in Hallstatt just enjoying the views. This is a ridiculously beautiful town and you’d be silly not to just spend time enjoying it’s natural beauty.
Now, for the things we didn’t get to do:
Have you ever been to Hallstatt? Did you enjoy it? Is there anything else you would add to my list?
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post and all thoughts are my own.
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We’re planning a road trip next year from the UK to Slovenia, and I’d love to pull in a day or two on the way at Hallstatt – it looks absolutely stunning! We usually have the worst luck when we travel too – we always joke whenever we take our caravan out that we have never ever been on a caravan holiday without a single drop of rain! We even visited Morocco when they were having flash flooding in the Atlas Mountains, so Marrakech literally shut down for a day while it rained. Worst luck haha!
xo Apri | April Everyday
We loved Hallstatt. It was super busy when we were there, but lovely to wander around for the day 🙂
[…] And finally we were off to Hallstatt for our final afternoon in Austria – there’s plenty to see and do here, so the town has a whole blog post dedicated to it – you can read all about that here. […]
I visited Hallstatt last May, it was beautiful and peaceful. I love this place. Many thanks for your sharing