Hallstatt: the 5fingers before the coaches, the salt mine, and a cold swim at Obertraun
13 playbooks shared · added to 31 trips
- 7:30 am1The Marktplatz before the coach parks fillHallstatt
Hallstatt gets around a million visitors a year into a village of 750 people, and essentially all of them arrive between 10:00 and 16:00. Before 08:30 the square is genuinely empty and the classic view from the northern lane is yours. Sleep in the village or Obertraun rather than day-tripping from Salzburg and this costs you nothing.
8 min by train or taxi · 4.5 km - 8:20 am2Round the lake to the Dachstein cable carObertraun
Bus 543 runs the shore road in about fifteen minutes. The Stefanie ferry is the prettier option — €2.50 each way, timed to meet the trains at Hallstatt Bahnhof on the far shore, running since 1881 — but it goes to the station, not to Obertraun, so use it on the way in or out rather than for this hop.
8 min by train or taxi · 2.1 km - 9 am3Dachstein Krippenstein cable car, sections I to IIIObertraun
The Panorama ticket for all three sections is about €47.90 at the desk, €46.70 online. It also covers the ice caves at the middle station — if you want those, do them on the way down, because the 5fingers is what empties out later in the day and the caves do not.
13 min walk · 950 m - 9:45 am45fingers, the Welterbespirale and the Heilbronner loopObertraun
Fifteen minutes' walk from the top station, five steel fingers cantilevered over a 500 m drop — the one with the glass floor is the fifth. The Welterbespirale further along has loungers and a fraction of the people. Add the Heilbronner Kreuz circuit for an hour of karst limestone and dwarf pine and you will lose the crowd entirely.
3 min walk · 100 m - 11:50 am5Lunch at the Lodge am KrippensteinObertraun
Right by the top station, sun terrace over the Dachstein plateau, and the Kaspressknödelsuppe is the correct order. They do beds too if you want the plateau at dusk.
8 min by train or taxi · 4.2 km - 1:30 pm6Swim at Strandbad ObertraunObertraun
Free, grass, a jetty, and water that peaks around 20°C in August and is bracing at any other time. The Obertraun end of the lake is shallower and warmer than the Hallstatt shore, and there is no one there. Ten minutes' walk from the cable car station.
8 min by train or taxi · 2.9 km - 3 pm7Salzwelten Hallstatt: funicular, Skywalk and the miners' slidesHallstatt
About €49 including the funicular up the Salzberg. Seven thousand years of salt mining and the oldest working mine in the world — the two wooden miners' slides are the reason children rate this above the lake. Check opening before you go: the mine has been through a long renovation and reopened for daily tours from 29 August 2026. Last tour is mid-afternoon, so this cannot be pushed later.
10 min walk · 800 m - 7 pm8Dinner at the Seehotel Grüner BaumHallstatt
On the Marktplatz with a terrace directly over the water, and by 19:00 the last bus has gone and the village belongs to whoever stayed. Reinanke, the lake whitefish, is the local order and only appears on menus that get it fresh.