Katholische Pfarrkirche Hallstatt

Visiting

Graves take up the only flat ground on the terrace, and the wall at the edge of it looks straight down on the roofs and the water. The church behind them has two naves and stands on rock that falls away beneath it, which is why the plan feels improvised from the inside. The charnel house is the low chapel to one side, entered on its own ticket, and it is one room: skulls in ranks at eye height, long bones stacked below them, the painted ones at the front. Ten minutes is enough to see it and longer to read it. Mass is said here on weekday mornings, so the church is not always empty when visitors arrive.