More than Scenic - Austria’s Salzkammergut Region

Austria’s alpine landscapes are stunning, but they’re also steeped in history. In this short article, Dr Nick Gordon introduces you to Austria’s Salzkammergut, the region south and east of Salzburg, loved for its pristine alpine lakes and traditional culture.

Often the first thing people asked when I said where I was is “what is a Salzkammergut?” It’s a good questions because, although Austria is hardly off the tourist map, the majority of its visitors see only Vienna and Salzburg (for their phenomenal museums and rich performing arts scenes) or the tracks of the country’s numerous cross-country ski routes.

Salzkammergut - literally the “Salt Domain” - is a small region stradling the mountains between the provinces of Salzburg, Styria and Upper Austria. It takes its name partly from the salt mines that have been used for over 7000 years (and which also lend their name to Salzburg, from where the salt went to market) and the private imperial domains created by the Habsburgs so that they could better monopolise the source and trade of the valuable commodity. For something exotic sounding, the name is actually quite descriptive.

The region, however, has also long been a favourite place of repose for Vienna’s elite from emperors to art dealers and for much of the 19th and 20th centuries its spa towns flourished, especially after Emperor Franz Joseph constructed his Kaiser Villa outside of Bad Ischl.

SALT

The salt mines have been used for millennia - archaeological evidence suggests that the ones above the lakeside town of Hallstatt (pictured below) have been used continuously for 7,000 years - and the rich veins of often slightly pinkish salt are not yet exhausted. We all know the value of salt as a preservative, especially for meat and fish, and the salt of these mines was a key source of the region’s wealth until the middle of the 20th century.

But some of the archaeological finds in the area are more surprising. Large numbers of pig bones from the Bronze Age were discovered in the 1990s outside the Hallstatt mines. The puzzling thing about the bones is that they were consistently incomplete skeletons, and their number far exceeded what you would expect a small settlement to require. And then someone had a brainwave - or a hungry stomach - and figured out that the animals weren’t slaughtered or eaten in this location. Instead they were slaughtered and partially butchered elsewhere, and then carried up the mountain where they were prepared for salting, in eight watertight pits, each of which could hold up to 200 halved carcasses. The ambient conditions inside the mines - 7 degrees and 60% humidity year round - were ideal for further curing and storage. People in the area were exporting salt as well was producing large quantities of cured ham and bacon for export. There aren’t too many places where you can visit a 3000 year old prosciutto factory…

The salt mines of the region have also served other purposes, such as the Altaussee mine which was used for the storage of the mostly looted art that had been accumulated by Nazis for the Fuhrermuseum in Hitler’s hometown in nearby Linz.

As the western allies closed in on the region - an area fortified as the last resort of the Nazi party and the remains of their puppet governments - the mine was included in the list of infrastructure to be destroyed and large crates containing high explosives were secretly moved in in containers labeled ‘marble’. The director of the mine was skeptical of their contents and had the miners move them out in the dead of night and then seal the entrance with small explosive charges, saving well known and much loved masterpieces by Jan van Eyck, Vermeer, Bruegel and Rembrandt from almost certain destruction.

Later the Monuments Men would rescue over 6000 works of looted art before the area was turned over for administration by the Soviet Union (some of the art in storage in the mine is photographed above, by Lieutenants Kern and Sieber).

Traditional crafts

As sometimes happens in alpine areas, traditions live on in the valleys long after industrialisation and urbanisation have changed the way the majority of people live. Today in it is not uncommon here to see people walking around - unironically - wearing traditional alpine garb (the distinctive green bodice and pink apron of the dirndl, lederhosen, and goiserer boots for example).

But these clothes continue to be made by hand in the region and these are just some of the traditional crafts still practiced here. But, without a way of reaching a large enough market for artisans to make a living, the crafts would die out and with them a significant amount of knowledge and traditional culture. Part of the reasoning behind making Salzkammergut a European Capital of Culture in 2024 was that numerous ‘dying out’ crafts were practiced there and that novel forms of investment are needed to keep these practices alive.

These crafts include distinctive forms of ceramics, especially from Gmunden, woodturning and violin making - the landscape is well forested, so high quality timber is abundant. A little more surprising is the area’s history of boat making - in particular a type of flat bottomed wooden vessel that has been used for thousands of years by people living along the Danube and its tributaries. Up until the later 19th century, the rivers and lakes of Salzkammergut were a primary means of transport, but today only a few people can make the traditional boats by hand.

An Emperor’s Spa Town

The boom in spa towns among Europe’s aristocracy in the 19th century was a boon for Salzkammergut with its stunning natural beauty, alpine lakes and clean air perfect for a romantic ideal of renovation through proximity to nature. The region too was both close enough but yet not too far from one of Europe’s great imperial capitals, Vienna, so that political movers and shakers, such as Metternich, could holiday there without being too removed from their networks. Many towns in the area preserve the architecture of this period, but none more so than Bad Ischl.

Bad Ischl became among the most fashionable places in the Austrian Empire to retire to in the summer months after Emperor Franz Joseph made it his summer residence, and then held the celebrations of his engagement to the trend setting Elisabeth of Bavaria there in 1853. The neoclassical villa he had constructed for them in the shape of an ‘E’ sits across the river from the town, and is surrounded by extensive English style gardens which carefully frame the views up into the mountains while providing a degree of privacy.

It was here in 1914 that Franz Joseph would sign the Declaration of War against Serbia, effectively starting World War One - from his private study over looking the gardens. The room is still preserved as it was on that day and I had the peculiar experience of being shown around the villa and learning its history from two of its residents - Habsburg descendants of the emperors. I’m not sure what was stranger: being in a room with someone who says “on this desk my ancestor started WWI” or the fact that they sold rubber duck versions of the said ancestor in the giftshop.

Nick Gordon traveled in Salzkammergut as a guest of the Austrian National Tourist Organisation in April 2023.