Salt Mine Tour near Salzburg
We will be visiting Salzburg in a few weeks. Can anyone recommend a good salt mine tour that would be accessible by train/bus close to Salzburg. My sister toured a salt mines 40 years ago and still talks about how much fun they had riding the slides down into the mines.
Janice
Newport, Minnesota USA 8/31/07
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I went to one in Hallstatt. I don't know if there are other ones on not.
According to Rick Steves' 2007 Germany & Austria book, there's a salt mine 9 miles above Salzburg above the town of Hallein (www.salzwelten.at). You can get a "Salz Erlebnis" ticket at the Salzburg train station that covers admission, train, & shuttle bus tickets (round trip for 21 euros). Steves' says this one is better than Hallstatt. There's another one in Berchtesgaden--info on page 587 of the above mentioned book. My husband & son went on the one in Hallstatt--he just said he wouldn't recommend it to anybody. Poorly done.
Thanks for the help. We have Rick's Best of Europe 2006 which mentions the Hallstat salt mine tour but we were hoping to find something closerto Salzburg. I will check out Ricks's Germany/Austria book for details on the two you mentioned. I'm curious as to why people either enjoy or don't enjoy the salt mine tours.
I went to Hallein 40 years ago as well as your sister. I enjoyed it. Went on a tour from Salzburg. They gave us canvas jumbsuits to put on for the "ride" down the wooden slides into the mine. I remember my buns got quite hot. Then we went on a little boat ride on an underground lake lit by colored lights. I have been in a few others in other countries in recent years and that one stands out as my favorite by far. Hope you can go.
Janice, My family and I did the salt mine in berchesgarten. We all loved it. It is a interesting tour. We did the salt mine in the morning and then the Eagle's nest and bunker tour in the afternoon. The salt mine tour was in German, but the guide would push a button and it would give the details over a speaker in English. We loved the area and it was a fun day. You can make reservations from home for the eagles nest tour that includes the bunkers. We did it through the TI in Berchesgarten.
We did the one in Berchesgarten in mid-June. Operating under the assumption that one salt mine tour isn't much different than any other, we chose it because it was most time effecient. Although the guide didn't translate everything to English and perhaps some of the others do. Easy bus ride from Salzburg (no. 508, I think, but check the schedule). Bought tour tickets at the mine and bus tickets onboard. Besides it being the most time effecient, I suspect it was also the cheapest. BTW, a salt mine tour is a fun thing to do once, but I wouldn't do it again.
Hallein is a cheap, easy and nearby way to see a great salt mine from Salzburg. You can do the whole thing in half a day if you plan properly. Taking the train to Hallstadt can make the day trip very long, as there is no direct, easy route to Hallstadt from Salzburg. Hallein is nowhere near as picturesque, but it is easier if you're trying to maximize your time.