SALZWELTEN HALLSTATT
The oldest salt mine in the world is nestled within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hallstatt. Prehistoric tunnels, miners’ slides, and the oldest wooden staircase in Europe awaits you at Salzwelten Hallstatt. As this place for “white gold” is a working mine, you can only enter the mine with a trained guide, and we encourage you to make the trip!
You will start your journey at the valley station of the Salzbergbahn funicular. (This is also where the souvenir shop resides!) When you purchase your ticket online, you will see a time on your ticket. This time is not when your actual tour begins, but instead when you will depart from this station. The funicular speedily takes you on up to Hallstatt high valley. Here you can take photos of the gorgeous views from the Hallstatt Skywalk and then continue 15 minutes uphill on foot until you reach the Knappenhaus entrance building.
view while walking from Hallstatt high valley to the Knappenhaus entrance building
Tours begin here on a first come, first serve basis, as they only bring so many people on each tour. You will be taken into a room to securely lock up your personal items and to put on white pants and a white shirt over your clothes. This is to make sure your clothes remain clean in the mine and specifically when going down the two slides that are within the mine! If you would like to bring your camera or even a small bag with you, you are allowed to keep those items on your person. Please note that while you can put your jacket in the lockers, I would leave all of your layers on underneath the white pants and shirt, as the temperature inside the mountain is about 8 degrees Celsius all year round.
Once outfitted, you will discover about 2 kilometers of the mine on foot. There is a smaller slide and a bigger slide within the mine that miners used to get around, and you will have the opportunity to try them out yourself! Note that your picture will be taken when you are on the bigger slide, and you will have an opportunity to purchase this photo for eight euros (as of October 2023) at the end of your tour. If you are not comfortable using the slides, there are steps running the length of the slides that you are welcome to use.
inside the mine
At the end of your tour, you will get a chance to try two different salts and you will even get to take a little vial of table salt home with you for free! By the end of the tour, you will have slid pretty deep into the mine, but there is a train that will bring you back out. You will then remove the white pants and shirt, grab any belongings you might have locked up, walk back to the funicular, take it down to ground level, and perhaps purchase some souvenirs on your way out! (I myself purchased an “I’m salty” t-shirt!)
While the tour is 90 minutes (which felt a bit long to us for a tour that is solely about salt!) we would recommend allotting three hours to leisurely enjoy all that the salt mine has to offer. Three hours would allow you plenty of time to get up and down on the funicular, walk to and from the entrance building, enjoy the tour, look out from the Hallstatt Skywalk, and do some shopping at the souvenir shop. Enjoy your salty experience!
