Jagdhaus in Altausee and the Salt Caves in Altausee

The weather in Altausee while we were here was ever changing, so we needed to be prepared clothingwise for rainy and cool to really warm.  It would rain pretty hard in the morning while everyone was just waking up and then turn into a sunny day.  You watch the weather changing above the mountain tops and come in.

On our last day we decided to pack up, hike around Altausee, and then head to the Salt Caves and go on a tour.

The girls pretending they died from packing up.

The hiking path around the lake is pretty flat.  The views of course are spectacular.  Loser Mountain is ever present glaring down at you.  Here is a great website for hikes in this area.

We came upon this great Gasthaus called Jagdhaus.  If you have trouble walking or feel like relaxing, you can take the Jagdhaus Seeweise (ferry) to get to this gorgeous Gasthaus.  To our surprise we learned that part of the James Bond movie  Spectre was filmed here.

We made an unplanned stop here.   The dessert was voted the best dessert by Brad and Ryan.  Kim found her favorite dessert here that she had been looking for while in Austria.

The girls had fun climbing on the rocks out front.

After our pretty walk we headed to the Salt Mine in Altausee.

For the tour you dress in protective clothing so your clothes don’t become dirty.

They show an informative film that explains how the Salt got trapped in the Earth.  There was a clever comparison to dumpling soup.  Once the film is over, you enter the mines.

The mine is still in production and they use water to obtain the salt.

The miner’s have a chapel called St. Barbara’s Chapel.

This painting is over 300 years old and is hung as an example of how well these mines preserve art.  These mines are where Hilter hid his stolen art collection.

The mine was still an active mine while the Nazi’s were doing all this.  Here is what the Nazi’s built to store Hitler’s collection.

The words mean,”Warning, Marble Don’t Move”.  The miner’s became curious as to why the Nazi’s were storing this boxes in the different rooms instead of keeping them all together. They peeked inside and saw that there indeed was not marble, but bombs instead.  As Hitler was losing the war, his thought was that if he can’t keep the art, then no one can.  They were going to detonate the bombs and destroy the stolen art.  The brave miner’s took it upon themselves to remove these cartons containing the bombs.  This was an extremely dangerous and bold thing to do.  They saved a thousands of pieces of artwork.   There was a movie made, “Monument’s Men”, about the American’s coming to recover this artwork.  Our guide told us that the movie was very Hollywoodized because there was never a doubt that the Americans would be the first to recover the art.  The movie made it seem like the Americans were trying to beat the Russians to get there first.  I found this all to be fascinating.  They tried to return the artwork to the rightful owners, although so many of them were murdered in the Concentration Camps.

A fun part of the tour was going on the mining slides.  This is an example of how a miner can quickly get from one level of the mine to another.

This tour was so informative and a peek into what makes up this area of Austria.

After our fun day together, we had to say goodbye to the Hahler’s and head to Salzburg to take the train to Munich.