Still Salty
Salt Mine!
Today I lived my Minecraft loving 10 year old cousin's dream and went into a real mine. We woke up early to get on a train that took us out of Salzburg and into the nearby mountains to find the Hallein salt mine that has provided much of central Europe's salt and nearly all of Salzburg's wealth since the 12th century.
While this was certainly a deeply touristy experience, I'm so glad we did it because it was so much fun. Our descent (after we put on our protective mining gear) started with a mine cart ride that felt like a rollercoaster. When we reached the bottom, our guide explained the salt mining and refining process. Salt is drilled out of the mine mechanically these days and pushed through pipes with water that then becomes a thick, salty brine. We were each allowed to try one drop of this brine and it was the saltiest substance I've ever consumed. I'm pretty sure a shot of that could kill a person.
Afterwards, we kept walking and passed a very steep wooden slide that miners used to use to get deeper into the mine. Visitors used to be able to ride it too until the 1970s when it was shut down for being too unsafe. At the bottom of this slide is a solid rock wall, meaning inexperienced visitors who slid down this shaft would immediately get thrown against the wall at the bottom. What happened next was something I absolutely didn't expect but was one of the coolest parts of this whole program.
I'm in Germany!! I've never been to Germany before today and am so happy to be able to add another country to the list of places I've been. Was I completely underground the whole time I was in Germany and only there for about an hour and 15 minutes? Yes. Doesn't mean I didn't go to Germany though!
Seriously, though, the fact that this already cool salt mine let me stand in two countries at once was incredible. I've never gotten to do that before and I doubt I ever will again but I'm so happy I got to.
After crossing the border, we finally got to ride one of the mine slides, albeit one that was a lot safer than the one that crashes into a wall at the bottom. Going down the slide was so much fun and, after doing it, I felt more desire to become a salt miner than I ever had in my life up to this point. Do I actually want to mine salt? No. Do I want to ride this fun slide to work? Yes, very much. Sometimes compromises have to be made.
Once we reached the bottom, we were loaded onto a boat that was sailing through brine which went past a recreation of Salzburg and multiple projections of the mine's history. I love rides so that part of my brain was all in on this, but the other part of me was feeling like this was a useless addition. Up to this point, I felt immersed in the mine and was interested in learning its history as well as the mining process while this boat ride existed solely to entertain rather than to inform.
\After the boat ride, we got to take another slide and then walk back to Austria where we were carted back to the surface with a free little tube of salt from the mine. I know this tour was built to churn hundreds and hundreds of tourists through and that I was being treated like cattle pushed from one room to another but it never felt that way. I admire their ability to make this extremely common and commercialized experience feel so singular and special and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone coming to Salzburg.
What I would not recommend is pretzel soup. After descending from the mountain the mine was in and taking the bus back to Salzburg, our group stopped in a beer garden for dinner. On the menu, I saw pretzel soup as an appetizer and was, naturally, intrigued. For the record, this is exactly what I expected it to be. I wasn't surprised by this outcome at all. I was foolish to hope it would be something different than this and it's my fault for ordering it before an otherwise really delicious meal. Turns out, pretzel soup is a very salty beef broth with chunks of the stalest pretzel on earth thrown in it. This was a weird way to start an otherwise lovely meal.
When we had finished dinner, we went to a small bar nearby doing a two for one happy hour deal called Flip that was carved into the side of a mountain so the walls were stone. The drinks weren't the best I've ever had but they were solid, cheap, and in a very cool environment with excellent music that meant me and my friends could talk and laugh all night to celebrate such a wonderful day.
