Train - Hallstatt to Munich

It was a fairly restless sleep - I felt like I was drowning. This hasn't been the relaxing break that I'd planned. The church bells decide to ring at 6am putting the end to any thoughts of managing to sleep a little longer. I'm up by 7am and by 7.30am dressed and fully packed. At 8am I have breakfast and afterwards go to settle the bill. While looking at the statement I notice a €16 restaurant charge. This is for eating at the restaurant I'm told. Yes, but I didn't charge €16 to my room and when I did eat there it was for more and I paid in cash. Hmm, are you sure you didn't have something else? Yes I'm quite sure. Maybe something delivered to your room? No, nothing.

A telephone call is made to the boss - oops, seems there's been a bit of a mistake. Yes, you could say that.

With the bill finally settled I head off to the dock and find that there's a ferry going at 8.44am so I catch it. At this stage I just rather wait for the train at the station - I'm kinda over Hallstatt. Hallstatt is pretty and it knows it. Though it doesn't quite live up to it's perfectly photographed image - there are just way too many cars to make it the ideal that it's purported to be.

It's also misinformation that you can criss-cross the town in 10 minutes - not with all the stairs and paths you need to take I think the guide books *cough*rick steves*cough* have been overly effusive in their description of this place and tried to turn it into some kind of nirvana.



This is a photo of the path from the train station down to the boat dock - I'm glad I took the earlier boat - no-one else was on it, I really didn't want an audience seeing me trying to wheel the bags up to the station. I was able to wheeze and have a coughing fit in private.



This is Hallstatt station - it's pretty indicative of the stations in this area - just a gravel path for a platform.

By the time the train arrives the ferry has returned and dropped off a few more people. I'm actually leaving an hour earlier than I had originally planned but that's not a problem - I'll just get into civilisation and a chemist an hour earlier!

I change trains at Attnang-Puchheim and again at Salzburg - the photo below is of Salzburg station.



I'm able to grab a sandwich for lunch while waiting for the train to Munich.



This long train passes by while I wait - I got a chuckle out of it.

The train to Munich is another one of those 6 seat booth types - it gets in before 2.30pm.