TownBest November – March, before or after the day-trippers

Hallstatt

A lakeside salt town under the Dachstein that gave its name to an Iron Age culture — and is crowded enough to visit in winter.

Hallstatt is squeezed between the shore of the Hallstätter See and the slopes of the Dachstein, in the Salzkammergut. It has mined salt since prehistoric times and gave its name to the Hallstatt culture of the early Iron Age, and it sits at the core of a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape.

It is also one of the most photographed towns in Austria and gets crowded in summer. Winter is the quieter time to come — stay the night, after the coaches have left.

Photo: C.Stadler/Bwag, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where to stay in Hallstatt

Stays shown via Stay22 — booking through the map supports the log.

Part of

Krampus

The Best Places to See Krampus

Seven Alpine towns where horned Krampus and Perchten run the streets in late November and early December — including Austria's smallest town, which drums on petrol tanks.