Hallstatt and big hike!

9/30: We drove to Hallstatt and had a picnic lunch in the park.

A diving board in the public park into decently shallow water and rocks. Yeesh!

A gorgeous scene

Charcot likes Hallstatt too

We walked around the town a bit, but there were an incredible amount of tourists! It was crazy - the most we have seen so far. We didn't anticipate that especially because it was a Monday!

Charcot appreciating the view

There are so many people around us right now trying to get in our picture!

We decided to hike up the mountain for more views, and to get away from the people! The kids did awesome on the hike, and we made it all the way to the top! It was 850 meters - the longest/steepest hike the kids had ever done. We were so proud of them!

We made it to the Skywalk at the top! There we are on the left.

Simone packed 4 chocolates and surprised us at the top.

What I didn't fully appreciate was the challenge it might be for the kids to also walk down again. We thought, no problem, we'll just buy tickets to go down on the funicular. Well, it turns out there was no place to purchase tickets at the top, and there was no one to ask. Everyone in line had their tickets that were purchased at the bottom when they rode up. Bob tried to download the funicular app, and had incredible difficulty finding funicular tickets to buy without buying a tour of a salt mine! Ugh. While he continued to try and figure it out, I ran to the restaurant at the top to see if one of the servers there could help me figure out how to buy funicular tickets.

Fortunately the man I found at the bar spoke English, and I explained our family's situation to him - that we had hiked up but now needed 2 tickets for my kids to ride down the mountain, and I didn't see any place to buy tickets. He looked at a man nearby, spoke to him in German, and that man grabbed 2 tickets from behind the bar. He explained to me that 2 people had left them earlier in the day and never returned for them, so he was comfortable giving them to me to use. Wow! I thanked him profusely ('Danke! Danke!') and quickly texted Bob to tell him the good news. When I arrived back to the family with the 2 tickets, Bob said it reminded him of our situation in Tanzania when a Swahili speaking Canadian helped us in Dar es Salaam! Once again, I am so thankful for angels on our travels to help us along!