White Gold, the Wealth of Salzburg.

May 11, 2019

Salt!

Today we left Salzburg riding along the Salzach River on our way to Golling a wonderful little alpine village. We got even closer to the snow topped mountains and saw high mountainous pastures.

On our way we had an adventure below ground.

Salt! Trains into the earth, boats with no horizon, slides into the depths of the mountain, tunnels 210 meters below ground and 1150 meters from the entrance. Tunnels dug by the Celts and again in the 1500’s to bring salt out of the rock and make Salzburg immensely wealthy.

To go into the mountain you have to put on special pants and coats over your clothes.

A collapsed tunnel. The mountain of salt above is constantly exerting soo much pressure that they continue to employ miners to keep the structure sound and reinforced so the tunnels won’t collapse.

Salt mine tunnel into the mountain. We walked about 1 km into the mountain in tunnels like this.

The border between Germany and Austria in the tunnel below the mountain. One tunnel we were in was dug in 1560.

Checking the salinity of the brine produced. They mined the salt by flooding underground caves with water and letting the water sit for a few days until the water was 27% salt the highest amount water can hold. The oceans are only about 3% salt.

An underground salt lake. We went across on a floating raft. When the mine was operating this cave would be filled with water to draw the salt out of the rock.

Next we walked through a reconstructed Celtic village. The celts were the first people to mine salt here.

The celts used notched wood to build their buildings. Kind of like Lincoln logs. They patched the cracks with clay and twigs.

Back on our bikes in the rain headed for our hotel. We rode in the valley through cloud shrouded mountains. We did have a few climbs along the way.

Golling the little alpine village where we stayed.

Today's ride: 24 miles (39 km)
Total: 1,352 miles (2,176 km)

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Sandy OsteenAmazing. Wonder how they discovered the salt and invented ways to mine it and use it so long ago?
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4 years ago

Lynn WalkerHow cool...salt mines, mine shaft and the gorgeous scenery!
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4 years ago