Cycling to Hallein in Salzburg (2nd largest city in Salzburg).

It’s so enjoyable just jumping on the bikes and heading off and exploring. The city is designed for bikes as the road has its own dedicated bike path as well as paths through the parks and several paths along the river, through the town and all over. There is traffic on the bike paths and its always entertaining and you need to watch out that you don’t hit a pedestrian.

We discover such cute towns on the bike and today we decided to ride to Hallein, a town to the north central Austria on the Salzach river just south of Salzburg city.

We headed off through the Mirabell Gardens and then down along the Salzach River. As we followed the bike path we could see the Hohensalzburg Fortress and the town of Aldstadt.

As we were travelling through the back streets we stopped as a siren was going off and it sounded very much like a raid siren, it was very weird and made me think of how in the times of war that sound would have caused panic and would have been for real to warn of a bomb raid. We are still unsure what the siren was for but I’m putting it down to a drill perhaps.

Before long, we were riding alongside green fields, quiet homes, and the dramatic backdrop of the Untersberg mountain.

We went into the town of Anif and caught a glimpse of Schloss Anif—a picture-perfect castle.

Ben became fascinated at an abandoned house that had its own moat and draw bridge, we are pretty sure it is abandoned but it would have looked incredible back in the day. Someone should really restore it but I would imagine it could be heritage listed.

We stopped at a very cute little point on the river and had lunch, consisting of mango, crackers, salami, fruit and cheese.