Sunday morning started early for us in our hotel in Venice. Austin's flight home left at 6:30 so we all woke up to see him off at five. It was so great that he could come and tour Italy with us and we had so much fun! Even though he had a few glitches, he's home safe and sound now. We went back to bed after seeing him off for another two hours and got up in time for breakfast at the hotel and checked out around 8:30. Then the traveling began. The Hallstatt area is a bit difficult to get to, and required us to take three buses and a train, which stressed me out a bit because we had to purchase the tickets between stops, where we usually had only about 15 minutes.
The first part of the trip was a bus from Venice to Villach. It was run by OBB which is a train company, so we could use our Eurail pass, but some places they use buses instead. That bus ride was about three hours and for the last hour was very beautiful and picturesque. We also noticed that public transportation in Austria is very different than Italy and Spain, where people talk and laugh loudly. All the trains and buses here are so quite, and even have signs for "silence please" and restrict cell phone usage in train cars. Anyway, after that bus we had about 15 minutes to catch a train which took us two hours further into what appeared to be the middle of nowhere in the alps. At the second station we found another place for a second bus which took us to an even tinier town where we stood in the snow and waited for one last bus. It starts getting dark here about 4:30 because of the mountains so by the time we got to our apartment at five it was so dark. When the lady let us in, we asked if there were any nearby grocery stores where we could grab something to eat, and she said no since it was Sunday.
It was disappointing, but we enjoyed using the wifi and I got to skype my family for a while and Justin and I enjoyed chatting with them about our adventures. Then we watched a movie and before going to bed tired and hungry with the hope of a quick walk to the grocery store the next morning. Before I continue, here's a few pictures from the train and the first day:
The walk was rather unpleasant since we had so much food and only three pairs of arms to carry everything. But it was about it get a little worse. Arriving home, we discovered that the bottle of yellow liquid with pictures of vegetables on the front was not cooking oil as we had suspected, but vinegar. Frustrated and still hungry from our 24-hour famine, we bitterly discussed the options. Finally we decided that it was Christmas eve and people were probably feeling friendly, so we knocked on the door of the lady who let us in and gave us our key and asked for some cooking oil. She nodded and gave us some in a cup and saved the day.
Things began looking up and we enjoyed our lunch of scrambled eggs with fries to improvise for a lack of hash-browns in the store. We decided to go on a walk down to the lake and found a small trail near a waterfall in the mountain. It was lovely but began getting chilly and dark so we headed home to do laundry (since our apartment had been advertised with a washer/dryer) and make dinner.
Oh, the laundry. We'd planned on doing it this week at the halfway point of our trip and had plenty from the three of us. Something went wrong in the first load and it never got to the spin cycle to wring them out as much as they should have. Then the drier didn't seem to work at all and only made our clothes very steamy but still wet. So we hung up everything on every surface of the apartment which made me a bit peeved since I just wanted to be able to get it done and enjoy Christmas eve. After Skyping with Mikey I went to bed, determined that Christmas would be more of a success. And it was!
We hiked along, gaining altitude as the trains began to be more and more covered in snow. My ten-dollar boots from Target were not up to the task in the least, but I didn't care. It was about 50º F today so it wasn't that cold, even with my feet totally soaked. As we neared the top, we heard water rushing, and to our delight found that we were about to walk over a bridge spanning a rather large mountain waterfall. Beyond that was a lookout point for the top of the train where the salt mine museum was (although it was closed for Christmas of course). The view was breathtaking!