Travel to Salzburg - Austria
Salzburg is the second largest city in Austria. It has a population of 150,000 people. It is a picturesque city with narrow streets, wide squares, colourful houses, castles, palaces, churches, gardens and fountains. It lies between tall mountains and the Salzach River flows through it, laying out a beautiful backdrop for a beautiful city of baroque-style buildings with towers and spires. Thanks to its incredible architecture, the old centre of the city has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the cities archbishops hired the best artists and craftsmen to design the city in a style similar to Rome, so Italian influence can be seen in the city. Salzburg isn’t nicknamed Rome of the North for nothing.
Salzburg is close to the border with Germany, so it also serves as a good starting point for trips to south Germany.
The city centre is small and compact, allowing one to walk on foot between the city’s famous tourist attractions.
Salzburg is also famous as the birthplace of the famous classical composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
You will find things related to
Mozart in every corner (besides the delicious chocolates
named after him): Mozart square (Mozartplatz), with a
statue of the composer at its centre; Mozarteum music
academy; the house where he grew up; and of course, the
Mozart museum. His music serves as a core component of
almost every musical event that takes place in the city,
which is known for its many music festivals. The most
famous of its festivals is the
Salzburger Festspiele,
which started in 1920 and has been attracting music fans
from all over the world since.
Another important
musical event for which the city is famous is the
musical The Sound of Music, one of the most-viewed
movies in history. Many scenes in the movie were filmed
in Salzburg. Today you can take a guided tour through
the city around sites relevant to the movie, watch a
dinner show based on songs from the movie, or watch a
marionette show of The Sound of Music (details later in
the article).
Alongside its rich history and classic
culture, Salzburg is also a lively modern city known for
its excellent coffee shops, its many restaurants, and
its great clubs, shops, theatres, galleries, and
museums.
The most famous street in the city, also
known as a successful shopping area, is the pedestrian
mall of Getreidegasse. This is a beautifully designed
narrow street where every little detail is wonderfully
stylised. Even the McDonalds sign is stylised
appropriately. This street is considered one of the most
beautiful shopping areas in Austria. Even if you don’t
like shopping, I recommend wandering through here. The
buildings in this street are tall, narrow and crowded
together. Between the buildings are roofed passageways
(mostly full of shops and galleries) and lovely
courtyards. Building number 9 on the street is the house
Mozart grew up in, which nowadays houses the Mozart
museum (more on this later).
In the centre of
Salzburg are beautiful piazzas which are a treat to
wander through. The largest one is Residenzplatz, at the
centre of which is an impressive fountain with statues
of horses, dolphins and characters from Roman mythology.
At the eastern end of the square is the new Residenz
building, which today houses the regional government
offices. A hundred years after its initial construction,
a bell tower was added to the building – the
glockenspiel. It features 36 bells which play Mozart
music three times a day: at 7AM, 11AM, and 6PM. From the
square you can take 20-25 minute horse carriage tours
through the old town. Another major square is
Mozartplatz, featuring a statue of the famous composer
at its centre. This square also has a tourist
information centre. A short walk away is the old market
square, or Alter Markt, where for hundreds of years the
city market was held. The square has a row of
pastel-coloured buildings from the 17th century. At its
centre is a statue of Saint Florian. Another one of the
city’s major squares is Domplatz.
More tourist
information about Salzburg can be found
here and at the
tourist information centre in Mozartplatz.
A Salzburg
card gives you a one-day pass to the main tourist
attractions of the city, as well as free use of the
city’s public transport. You can easily get to the city
in a private vehicle and park in one of the city’s many
parking lots. A map of the city’s parking lots can be
found here. You can also park in one of the free-to-use
parking lots in the city’s suburbs off the freeway and
get to the city centre via public transport.
If you
love wandering around beautiful streets, shops, gardens
and castles and you are not pressed for time, the best
way for you to see the city is to walk all around the
old town on foot.
If you don’t have as much time, you
can take a bus tour around the major tourist
attractions. Some tours that are especially nice are
ones themed around The Sound of Music. Several companies
offer tours between the various filming locations of the
movie around the city. The two major companies that
offer this are
Panorama Tours and
Bob’s Tours. More
sporty people can join
Fraulein Maria’s Bicycle Tour.
The Stadtbus, Salzburg’s city bus, goes to all of the
city’s major tourist attractions. There are ticket
offices at the train station and on 4th Schrannengasse
Street. Salzburg Card holders can ride the bus for free.
If you’d like to see the city from a different
viewpoint, take a guided boat tour on the Salzach River
running through the centre of the city.
Salzburg Stadt
Schiff-Fahrt offers different boat tours in the city and
around it. The shortest tour is an hour long and it is
free for Salzburg Card holders.
I recommend spending
at least one day in this beautiful city in order to see
all of the main attractions in the old town combined
with Hellbrunn Palace.
If you would like to visit
more sites, such as museums, the zoo and the cable car
near the city, go on a Sounds of Music tour or
participate in festival events, give it a full two days.
Hellbrunn Palace
A true children’s favourite in the city is
Hellbrunn
Palace and its water tricks.
This is a baroque-style
palace built in the 17th century at the foot of the
Hellbrunn Mountains as a summer home for Bishop Markus
Sittikus. The bishop, who was rich and had a good sense
of humour, wanted to create a unique place where he
could toy with his guests. The palace, built in only
three years, is located in a big park with beautiful
gardens, not far from the zoo. You will get an amusing
guided tour of the place, during which the guide will
activate a series of hidden fountains and other amusing
water-operated tricks, getting visitors wet and keeping
them guessing about where the next spray of water will
come from. This is how the bishop pranked his highly
esteemed visitors back in the day.
Many of the
fountains aren’t hidden and are very impressive and
beautiful (many of them designed with roman mythology in
mind), but some are hidden in bushes, flowers, and
rather innocent-looking statues... The bishop also built
a small theatre of 256 dolls, all operated by water
pressure. After the tour you can walk around the
beautiful gardens independently.
Here, too, scenes of
the Sound of Music were filmed.
The palace is located
8km south of the centre of Salzburg.
More articles about Austria
Austria - General Information
Visiting Austria with Children
Shopping in Viena
A Family Holiday in Salzburg and Tyrol in Austria
Star Trips in Austria