Out of the blue, my friends here came up with idea let's go somewhere and as we usually do, this somewhere was something somebody had mentioned somewhere so it was about you know, that magical place in Austria. I googled "magical place in Austria" and got Hallstatt which is a tiny village near some mountain lake in Austria and off we went there fearlessly and guided with automatic navigation in the car. Hallstatt turned out to be truly prettiest little spot, very quiet and reflective, absolutely adorable postcard-like village situated on the mountain lake, I believe it was one of the prettiest places I have ever visited (and I am travelling for work so I am familiar with many vacation spots). Its usually on the lists of places you have to see before you die. Its completely pedestrian and you can walk from one end to another in 30 minutes. Lots of tiny little streets, rustic Austrian architecture, explosion of colours in the window seals (flowers everywhere), little church, shops with local products (interesting artifacts from salt, as this was a famous salt mine in the past), if locals are bothered with all these tourists, they don't show it. The road to Hallstatt was finally built in 1890 and until than this place could have been reach only by lake or mountain road, truly isolated from the rest of the world and you do have feeling that time stands still there. You can sit there, sip your cappuccino and relax while the world troubles and worries pass by.
Next morning we continued our journey and completely by accident found another lake (apparently there are lots of lakes around) with a cutest guesthouse where we enjoyed our morning coffee with a spectacular view. This lake is called Wofgangsee, than and there I decided that I prefer little mountain lakes and places to a crowded touristy coast line where you can't even find a space to sit down and locals are always unfriendly - here you really relax and enjoy + Austrians are really orderly people, even when there is a little beach spot, everything is so neat and arranged, no garbage anywhere, its truly heavenly. And a quiet everywhere, no sound coming or car or anything, just pure mountain air and water looking like a glass.
Salzburg did not impress me at all. Its good we went there because it was nearby but it was just another touristy place. Pretty Austrian architecture but you can see it elsewhere. If Mozart wasn't born there, I doubt anybody would bother to visit - while he lived there, locals didn't think much of him and in fact he was famously kicked out of town by some local big head, now the whole tourism is based on the fact that Salzburg happened to be his birthplace (he made career in Vienna and Prague, not here). Its a bit of Mozart overkill - all sorts of trashy souvenirs based on Mozart: ashtrays, famous candies, perfumes, shawls, aprons, you name it. After a while you get sick of too much Mozart trinkets. Of course we have seen his birthplace, his monument and the cathedral where he was christened but honestly, after 30 minutes there's nothing else in the old town (besides perhaps visit to a impressive fortress on top of town, however it was so hot that we just couldn't survive that adventure). We checked out pretty gardens around Mirabel palace and ended our tour in some beer garden, it was just unbelievably sizzling and hot day, you wouldn't expect Austria to be so hot. I am very pleased with this little journey, however mountain lakes and their little places were far more magical and impressive than Salzburg.
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