10 Best Things to Do in Hallstatt

The Hallstatt Skywalk is a cantilevered steel platform that projects 12 metres out from the mountainside at an elevation of 360 metres above the lake, giving an unobstructed vertical view down onto the village roofs and the length of Lake Hallstatt (Hallstätter See) toward Obertraun. It sits directly above the Rudolfsturm restaurant, on the same terrace as the entrance to the salt mine. Reaching the platform takes about three minutes on the Salzbergbahn funicular from the lower station near the P2 car park, or roughly 45 minutes on foot via the marked path through the salt-mining archaeological zone. The Skywalk itself is free to visit; only the funicular ride (round trip approximately EUR 22 for adults in 2026) or a combined salt-mine ticket is charged. Operating months are late April through early November, with the last uphill funicular typically at 16:30.

Pro Tip: Buy the funicular-plus-salt-mine combination ticket online in advance - it saves roughly 15 percent and, more importantly, gives you a fixed entry slot for the mine, which routinely sells out for the same day by mid-morning in summer.

Salzwelten Hallstatt is the world's oldest known salt mine, with archaeological evidence of extraction going back roughly 7,000 years to the Neolithic period. The guided tour lasts about 90 minutes and covers roughly 1.5 kilometres of tunnels, most of which date from the medieval and early-modern periods, with two long wooden slides used to descend between levels. Highlights inside the mine include the preserved body of the "Man in the Salt" - a prehistoric miner discovered in 1734 - a subterranean salt lake illuminated with coloured light, and a small cinema carved into the rock that screens a film on Bronze Age mining techniques. Adult tickets in 2026 are approximately EUR 40, funicular included, and the mine operates from late April to early November with the last tour usually starting at 14:30. Temperature inside is a constant 8 degrees Celsius, so a jacket is required regardless of the weather outside.

Pro Tip: The oldest wooden staircase in Europe, dated to 1344 BC by dendrochronology, is displayed behind glass roughly halfway through the tour - ask the guide to slow down at that point, because the standard commentary passes over it in under a minute.

Lake Hallstatt (Hallstätter See) is 8.55 square kilometres in area and reaches a depth of 125 metres, fed by the Traun River and surrounded by limestone peaks that rise almost 2,000 metres directly from the water. Hemetsberger, the local family-run operator, runs the historic wooden Fahrgastschiff "Stefanie" on scheduled 50-minute round trips from the Hallstatt Lahn dock, calling at Obertraun and returning past the village from the water - the only angle from which you can see the full three-tier stack of houses, church, and cliff. Fares in 2026 are approximately EUR 16 for the standard tour, with departures roughly every 90 minutes between mid-May and mid-October. A more traditional option is to rent a Fuhr, the flat-bottomed wooden rowing boat used historically to move salt across the lake, from the boat house on Seestrasse for about EUR 20 per hour.

Pro Tip: Take the first scheduled crossing of the day, usually at 10:15, and disembark at Obertraun rather than returning - you can then continue directly to the Dachstein cable-car valley station on foot in 20 minutes, combining two attractions on one ticket.

The Beinhaus, or Charnel House, is a small stone ossuary attached to the Catholic parish Church of Maria am Berg, above the Marktplatz. Because the village cemetery has no room to expand - the mountain rises immediately behind it - remains have historically been exhumed after 10 to 15 years and stored in the ossuary. The Beinhaus contains more than 1,200 skulls, of which 610 are painted with names, dates, and decorative motifs of ivy, oak leaves, and roses corresponding to the deceased's family or profession. The practice began around 1720 and continued until 1995, when the last skull was added at the request of the deceased. Entry is EUR 2, and the chapel is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00 between May and October, with reduced hours in winter. The space is genuinely small, holding no more than about eight visitors at a time.

Pro Tip: Look for the skull painted with a serpent and dated 1862 - it belonged to a village woman and is one of the few examples where the motif clearly departs from the standard floral vocabulary, indicating something specific about her life that the parish register still records.

The Dachstein Ice Cave, known in German as Rieseneishöhle or "Giant Ice Cave," lies inside the Dachstein massif above Obertraun, on the opposite side of the lake from Hallstatt village. It is one of the largest ice caves in the Alps, with formations that include a 20-metre ice wall known as the "Great Ice Chapel" and columns that shift measurably from year to year because the ice is still forming. Reaching the cave requires a 10-minute ride on Section 1 of the Dachstein Krippenstein cable car to Schoenbergalm at 1,350 metres, then a 15-minute walk uphill. The guided tour lasts about 50 minutes and covers 800 metres of illuminated passage; interior temperature stays just below freezing. Combined cable-car and cave tickets in 2026 are approximately EUR 42. The cave operates from early May to late October.

Pro Tip: Book the German-language tour rather than the English one if you can follow along with a printed translation sheet - the German tours run about twice as often, so you avoid the 90-minute wait that builds up at the English departures between 11:00 and 14:00.

The Five Fingers is a steel viewing platform shaped like an open hand, cantilevered off the cliff edge of Mount Krippenstein at 2,109 metres. Each of the five "fingers" has a different feature: one is glass-floored, one holds a picture frame that lines up with the peak of the Dachstein glacier, one has a hole cut through the walking surface to look straight down 400 metres, and the outer two are simply railed observation extensions. The platform is reached by riding all three sections of the Dachstein Krippenstein cable car from Obertraun (about 20 minutes total) then walking 15 minutes on a marked gravel path. There is no separate entry fee once you have the cable-car ticket, which is approximately EUR 45 for the full round trip in 2026. The Five Fingers is accessible from mid-May to late October, weather permitting, and closes in high wind.

Pro Tip: Continue another 20 minutes past the Five Fingers to the Welterbespirale platform - almost no one on the day-trip circuit walks that far, and the 360-degree view of the Gosaukamm and Hallstatt lake is genuinely better than from the more famous platform.

The Hallstatt Museum, formally the Welterbemuseum Hallstatt, presents the archaeological record of the region across 25 rooms on Seestrasse, directly opposite the Lahn boat dock. The permanent exhibition covers the Hallstatt Culture, an Iron Age civilisation dated roughly 800 to 400 BC that gave its name to an entire European archaeological period because so many defining artefacts were first excavated at the site above the village between 1846 and 1863. Displays include bronze swords, amber jewellery, textile fragments preserved in salt, and a full reconstruction of a prehistoric miner's leather backpack. Adult admission in 2026 is approximately EUR 12, and the museum is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00 from May to September, with shorter winter hours. Allow 90 minutes to two hours; the labels are in German and English throughout.

Pro Tip: Do the museum before the salt mine, not after - the context on Iron Age extraction methods, the wooden staircase, and the "Man in the Salt" makes the mine tour meaningful rather than a corridor of coloured lights.

Waldbachstrub is a three-tier waterfall at the head of the Echerntal, the wooded glacial valley that runs west from Hallstatt into the Dachstein foothills. The falls drop roughly 90 metres across three cascades fed by meltwater from the Hallstaetter Glacier above. The walk from the village to the base of the falls is about 5 kilometres one way, on a mostly flat forest track that passes the Gletschergarten - a small open-air geology exhibit showing potholes carved by the last ice age - and several timber shelters used by hikers in poor weather. There is no entry fee and no gate. The trail is open year-round, but the upper cascades run at full volume only from May to July during the spring melt; by September the flow is a fraction of that. Allow three to four hours for the round trip on foot, or use an e-bike rental from the village to cut it in half.

Pro Tip: Continue 20 minutes past the falls to the Simony Denkmal, a stone memorial to the 19th-century Dachstein cartographer Friedrich Simony - the flat rock beside it is where local hikers stop for lunch, and it holds one of the best views of the glacier from the valley floor.

Gosausee, sometimes called Vorderer Gosausee to distinguish it from the higher Hinterer Gosausee, is a 74-hectare lake at 933 metres elevation in the neighbouring Gosau valley, roughly 30 kilometres west of Hallstatt by road. Its main attraction is the reflection: on windless mornings the entire south face of the Dachstein glacier, at 2,995 metres, mirrors on the water surface with almost no distortion, giving what is widely considered the single most photographed alpine scene in Austria. A flat 4-kilometre walking loop circles the lake in about an hour, and a cable car from the northern shore climbs to Zwieselalm at 1,600 metres for a panoramic view down onto both Gosau lakes. Reaching Gosausee without a car means taking Postbus line 543 from Hallstatt Lahn, which runs roughly every two hours and takes 55 minutes. Entry is free; parking is EUR 6 per day.

Pro Tip: Arrive before 09:00 - by mid-morning the valley wind picks up and the reflection is gone, and the only shot people get after that is the same photograph with ripples across it.