Hallstatt Village at Night

I surprisingly finished early that afternoon in Hallstatt. I spent the morning touring the Salzwelten Hallstatt which is the seven thousand year old salt mine up on the mountain behind the village. Then I also visited another unique site in the village which is the ossuary at the Chapel of Saint Michael. This is of course on top of the countless photos I have taken of the village by the Hallstatter See. For some people like me, this was enough reason to come here in the first place. I was lucky that there was also an ancient salt mine here which helped it get included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. I’m not one for selfies but I still can’t help taking countless photos of the village what with the clear weather that day.

It was winter when I visited, and of course, I knew that it gets dark sooner. However, it feels like it does so much earlier here. The village is surrounded by mountains and it won’t be long before the sun goes behind the mountains and darkness starts to set in. In a way, this is good for me since I don’t need to wait very long to take night shots of the village. Unfortunately, Hallstatt village doesn’t have much of a Christmas village at the time of my visit but the village is still lit up at night. It was fascinating to see this bright area amid a sea of darkness that is the lake and the mountains behind it. From here you can see how controlled the development of the area is and I like how well managed it is. It would have been very easy to just keep building but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. I had to stop taking photo since it will only get darker and I don’t have a tripod to keep the camera steady.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/Hallstatt.kmz} zoom=19]