Touring a Centuries-Old Austrian Salt Mine

2025

Touring a Centuries-Old Austrian Salt Mine

October 10th, 2025

HALLEIN, AUSTRIA — I am thankful never to have had to work in a salt mine, especially after touring Salzwelten Salzburg. That name refers to the Hallein Salt Mine on Dürrnberg Mountain, which stopped active operations in 1989 and is now advertised as the world’s oldest salt mine open to visitors. Daughter Mere, son-in-law Matt, and I took a train from Garching, a small town in Bavaria near their home in Unterneukirchen, to Salzburg, on the German-Austrian border. We then boarded a bus to reach the mining site, and afterward walked a few hundred yards uphill to the mine, which is now purely a subterranean tourist attraction.

This trip has definitely been planes, trains, and automobiles.

If you’re ever in the neighborhood, take this tour. It includes riding down a couple of miners’ slides deep into the mountain that overlooks the meadow where Julie Andrews cavorted in The Sound of Music, a raft ride across an underground salt lake, and the opportunity to look ridiculous wearing white miners’ overalls. Our young, engaging guide first described what we were seeing in German and then in English. A bonus was crossing the border from Austria into Germany while deep underground. No border guards were present.

Salt has been an integral part of human civilization for more than 8,000 years, with Chinese writings from roughly 6050 B.C. describing methods for extracting it from seawater. It was used in religious ceremonies and became a valuable trade commodity. This mine was worked for more than 2,600 years and was integral to nearby Salzburg becoming a key trading community. The area was first settled by Celts, who extracted rock salt at the Dürrnberg mine starting around 800 B.C., as evidenced by wooden tools, pickaxes, and other artifacts uncovered in excavations. The salt preserved the artifacts.

Dürrnberg became a major Celtic economic center, as salt was traded across Central Europe for more than three centuries during the Middle Ages. After a centuries-long hiatus, salt mining resumed during the Holy Roman Empire beginning in 1198, then under the control of the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg (Salt City in English). Salt was extracted from the mine, backbreaking work that involved using pickaxes to load two-wheeled wooden wagons, which were hauled up and out of the mine.

There is an underground chapel in the mine, with a small altar carved into the salt rock. It features a statue of St. Rupert of Salzburg, patron saint of salt miners and founder of Salzburg. Four small, framed photographs are on the altar’s ledge. Mining accident victims, perhaps? I wish I had asked the guide at the time.

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The overalls, which didn’t have shoulder straps, were large enough to cover what we were wearing and then some. My trousers kept falling around my knees until I devised a way to tuck them into my existing pants. The added warmth came in handy, since the temperature inside the mountain is a constant 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) year-round.

We boarded an open-air train similar to the one that transported miners to the area being worked. The guide advised us to keep our hands close to our sides. Soon, we were hurtling into the mine at a fair clip. It reminded me of the Runaway Mine Train at Six Flags in Dallas and felt nearly as fast.

Our guide took us through the mine’s history, often stopping so we could watch a short video projected on the mine’s wall. Like all industries still in existence — and there are several salt mines still operating today in Austria — mining became increasingly mechanized over the centuries. He showed us a giant cutting head that eventually replaced pickaxes. (A photo accompanies this piece.)

We gazed upon a pillar of salt that was not Lot’s wife and sampled a pinch of Bad Ischler Kristall Salz. The guide gave each of us a tiny container as a souvenir and sent us on our way 90 minutes after the tour began. We had to give back the overalls before leaving.