Everyone who has ever been to Salzburg is enthusiastic about the city. For a long time it was on my bucket list and now we have finally managed to visit Salzburg. And we have not been disappointed! The birthplace of Mozart has a lot to offer, besides the numerous sights, there is fine food and very good beer. As luck would have it, we are in town exactly for the 100th anniversary of the world-famous Salzburg Festival, which is why there is even more going on than usual.

Salzburg is the fourth largest city in the country with a population of just under 155,000 and is known not only for its large tourism but also as a trade fair and congress center.
Salzburg is located on the northern edge of the Alps, which means that the city is dominated by various city mountains. The fortress, the Mönchberg and the Rainberg border the old town, furthermore the mountains Kapuzinerberg, Hellbrunner Berg and Mozart Hügel characterize the city of Salzburg. In addition, Salzburg is divided in two by the river Salzach. In the middle of the city on both banks of the Salzach is the historic old town.

 

How you get there

Car

We are on the road with our rented camper van and reached Salzburg from Graz via well-constructed (but not quite cheap) highways. Finding a parking space in the old town is not that easy and above all parking is really expensive. For this reason we left our camper on the campground and used the public transport network of Salzburg. If you are travelling by public transport, maybe the Salzburg Card is an option for you? More about this further down in this article.

 

Train

Due to its proximity to Germany, Salzburg Central Station is operated by both the Austrian Federal Railway (ÖBB) and the German Railway (DB). This means that the station is also very well connected internationally and is an important hub for European rail traffic. The train station is located in the center of Salzburg, but you still have to walk 20 minutes to the old town. If this is too long for you, you can take the bus number 22 and reach the old town in a few minutes.

 

Airplane

Only 3km west of the city center is the airport of Salzburg, it is the second largest airport after Vienna and is constantly growing. The bus line 2 takes you within 23min from the airport to the central station and the bus line 10 takes you within 15min to the city center.

 

Salzburg Card

With the www.salzburg.info you will have free entrance to most of the city’s attractions and discount on almost all other attractions. In addition, public transport in the city of Salzburg is free with the card. The card is available for 1, 2 or 3 days and is valid for the full 24 hours of a day, so if you buy it at 17.00 it is valid until 17.00 the following day.

Usually we are skeptical about such tourist cards, which are now available in almost all major European cities. But after a short rollover, what we want to see, we find out that we really drive cheaper with the card. Especially since we also want to use the public transport from the camping site into the city.

Places of interest

“Getreidegasse”

The old town is the starting point for almost all sights of Salzburg and the Getreidegasse is the heart of the old town. The alley is not only THE promenade and shopping mile of Salzburg but also offers beauty for the eyes of architecture lovers. Very nice to look at are also the traditionally manufactured metal billboards, which hang above every store and are still used by both the traditional stores and the international fashion chains.
There are countless small passage houses in which narrow passages to the parallel alleys were built on the first floor. Here you will find small boutiques and nice cafes.

 

Mozart birthplace & Mozart residence

Salzburg is the birthplace of the world-famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the people of Salzburg are very proud of this fact.
In the middle of the old town, at Getreidestrasse No. 9, you can visit the birthplace of Mozart. Here he spent his whole childhood and youth. The house is open daily from 9.00 – 17.30, with the Salzburg Card you have free entry, otherwise the entrance costs 12 Euro for adults and 3.50 Euro for children.

If you would like to continue on Mozart’s paths, you can visit his house at Marktplatz No. 8. Mozart lived here with his family for almost 10 years until he moved to Vienna in 1781. In the spacious 8-room apartment is now a museum about Mozart’s life. The museum is open daily from 9.00 – 17.30. With the Salzburg Card you have free entry, otherwise the entrance fee is 12 Euro for adults and 3.50 Euro for children.

If you know in advance that you would like to visit both the house where Mozart was born and the house where he lived, there are also combination tickets available.

 

Fortress Hohensalz

High above the old town of Salzbug on the fortress hill is the Hohensalz Fortress. The castle impresses already from afar and invites you to visit it.
You can either walk up or take the fortress train up. Once you have arrived on the fortress hill, there are five different museums to visit: Fortress Museum, Rainer Regiment Museum, Puppet Museum, Exhibition Almpassage and the exhibition Zeughaus. With the Salzburg Card the entrance to all museums as well as the cable car is free of charge. Otherwise, the total entrance fee for an adult is 12.90 Euro and for a child 7.40 Euro. Family tickets are also available (28.60 Euro).

The main exhibition in the Fortress Museum is simple and appealingly designed so that even children can have fun. Simple comic videos tell the story of the city of Salzburg, its archbishops and the Hohensalz Fortress. There is also a bistro and a restaurant to refresh yourself between all the museum visits.

Salzburg Cathedral

Salzburg has numerous churches and sacral buildings, but the cathedral is by far the most important and impressive of them. The early baroque building impresses with its detailed stucco work on walls and ceilings, as well as the beautiful ceiling paintings. The entrance is free and the cathedral is usually open Mon-Sat between 8.00 and 17.00 o’clock, Sundays and holidays 13.00 to 17.00 o’clock.

DomQuartier – Cathedral Quarter

The DomQuartier admission ticket combines four museums and offers a concentrated load of baroque state rooms, Salzburg’s city history, a picture gallery, the church treasure and the opportunity to view the cathedral from the upper terrace. You can stay here for 2-3 hours, let yourself drift and listen to the information from the audio guide, but you should expect a minimum of one hour.

The museum is open from Wednesday to Monday from 10.00 to 17.00 pm – last admission is one hour before closing – and costs 13 euro. With the Salzburg Card the entrance is free.

House of nature

From the Haus der Natur we have already read interesting things in advance, but we have kept it as a bad weather program. And in fact it rained on one of the days we spent in Salzburg. So let’s get there. The museum is a natural history museum in the true sense of the word, with a live animal exhibition and a science center with hands-on physics and technology. Here really everyone will find something to fascinate them. The museum is especially designed for the smaller visitors, so it is not surprising that families with children are especially popular.
We spent about 3 hours here and left out some of the exhibition rooms. Here you can spend a whole day without getting bored.

The museum is open daily from 9.00 – 17.00 and costs 8.50 Euro for an adult and 6.00 Euro for a child. With the Salzburg Card the entrance is free.

Mönchsberg (elevator) / Museum of Modern Art

High up on the Mönchsberg is the Museum of Modern Art. The Mönchsberg elevator takes you directly from Salzburg’s old town up to the Mönchsberg. Although we did not visit the museum, we admired the beautiful view from the Mönchsberg to the city of Salzburg.

With the Salzburg Card the elevator ride up the Mönchsberg is free, otherwise the fun costs you 2.60 Euro. The view is really beautiful, so a short detour to the mountain is worth it.

Mirabell Castle & Mirabell Garden

In the middle of the city you will find the Mirabell Castle with the baroque pleasure garden in front of it. The castle houses the city administration and therefore only a few rooms are open to the public, but the entrance is free.
The beautiful garden in front of the castle invites you to take a walk and relax on one of the countless benches. The garden is open daily from about 6.00 a.m. until dusk.

Boat trip on the Salzach

On the river Salzach you can take a boat trip with the panorama speedboat “Amadeus Salzburg”. There are three different tours, whereby tours 2 and 3 take you to Hellbrunn Palace, while tour 1 is a 40min boat trip on the Salzach with the same start and end point. We chose tour 1 and could enjoy an informative boat trip with dancing in the pouring rain. Yes right, a dancing ship.

The Tour 1 is free with the Salzburg Card, otherwise the Tour 1 costs 16 Euro, the Tour 2 18 Euro and the Tour 3 32 Euro. Tickets are available in the small house to the left of the landing stage. Even with the Salzburg Card you have to pick up an original ticket before boarding.

 

Hellbrunn

Hellbrunn Palace is located just 8 km outside the city center and is a tourist magnet, especially in the summer months. The late renaissance building was commissioned by Salzburg’s prince archbishop Markus Sittikus in 1612 as a place of entertainment and recreation. The castle has a large park with a large adventure playground for the younger visitors. But the highlight next to the castle are the water games. Here the theme of water is brought to the fore, a pleasure for young and old.

Depending on the season, Hellbrunn Palace is open from 9.30 – 16.30, in summer even until 18.00. The entrance fee is 13.50 Euro for adults and 6.00 Euro for children. Admission is free with the Salzburg Card.

Accommodation

Since we are on the road with our rented camper van, we did not look for hotels or other accommodations. But for the campers among you we can recommend the Motorhome parking space Salzburg. It’s not the most original place, but it is well equipped for motorhomes. And with 20 Euro (space with electrical connection 22 Euro) quite cheap. The site is a bit outside of Salzburg, but there is a very good public transport connection, in case you don’t want to drive into town with your camper like we do in this case.