Doubilet-Benson Orient Express Bike Trip 2014: Touring and Biking in Upper Austria

Saturday, August 30 was a non-biking day, which we spent as "regular" tourists hosted by an old friend Karl-Heinz Lumpi and a new friend Brigitte Lumpi (Karl's wife). They took us to the town of Hallstatt, home of the world's oldest salt mine, which began operations 7000 years ago. The four of us went on a guided tour of the mine, which was both educational and fun. The tour includes information provided by the guide as well as via a number of brief movies. Together, these explain how the salt-containing mountains formed (partly as a result of continental drift), how the early residents of the area came to realize that there was salt to be mined, and how the technologies have evolved over time to extract the salt. The tour also includes two long, steep, wooden slides that provide exhilarating rides down into the depths of the mine. An interesting fact about salt is that the word salary originates from the Latin word "salarium", which referred to the money paid to the Roman Army's soldiers as an allowance to buy salt, a valuable substance since salting was an important method of food preservation.

We also toured the picturesque town of Hallstatt (so picturesque, in fact, that a full-size version of the town has been replicated in China). An attraction in the town is the Beinhaus -- bone house -- that dates back to the twelfth century and contains over 1200 skulls neatly stacked in rows along with next of kin. Since the town's cemetery is so small, without room to expand, graves were opened 10 - 15 years after burial and the skulls were removed (sometimes with other bones). The skull was cleaned and exposed to the sun and moon light for weeks until they were bleached ivory white, and then placed in the Beinhaus. The last skull placed into the Beinhaus was in 1995.

Our day ended with a marvelous dinner with the Lumpi's, together with Omar Ishrak (CEO and president of GE Healthcare until 2011, currently Chairman and CEO of the medical technology company Medtronics). We were also joined by the Lumpi's son Daniel and his wife and 8-month-old baby. The food and company were wonderful.

Today's bike ride was intended to be a 64-mile ride to Mauthausen, Austria. The town has a gruesome history, since the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp was a group of camps built around Mauthausen, located 12 miles east of Linz on the Danube River. Mauthausen became the largest labor camp in Nazi-held territory during World War II and had a reputation for being the toughest, with its goal of exterminating inmates through hard labor. Inmates worked in quarries and factories on a starvation diet of less than 1000 calories per day. Weak, emaciated prisoners were forced to carry heavy stones up steep stairs at the quarry. If one fell backwards, a series of prisoners would be carried down with the fall, like an avalanche. Besides deaths from these dangerous work conditions, prisoners were killed from beatings, ice showers, shootings, medical experiments, electrical shock, and, later, a gas chamber built at the camp. The Mauthausen camp was the last of the concentration camps to be liberated. By the time the Allies came, approximately 240,000 of the 320,000 prisoners had died. One of the survivors of this camp was Simon Wiesenthal, an engineer who has devoted his life to hunting Nazi war criminals.

When we arrived at Mauthausen and went to the guesthouse we'd booked, we immediately had bad vibes about it. Laundry and shoes were blocking the hallway, rooms were tiny, and WiFi was spotty. Contributing to our aversion to the Mathausen guesthouse was the horrible history of the town, which we had read about at breakfast this morning before hopping on our bikes. We left Mauthausen and biked back 4 miles to stay at a hotel in the adjoining town Enns.

With the Karl-Heinz and Brigitte Lumpi, dressed in what looks like prison garb. It's what's provided to wear during the tour of the Hallstatt salt mine.