Day Trips

Day Trips from Salzburg: Lakes, Salt Mines and Mountains

Our pick of the best day trips from Salzburg splits into two kinds. Hallstatt is a long day with changes of bus, train or boat, and a tour takes the planning off your hands. The salt mine in Hallein, the Untersberg cable car, the Königssee, the Wolfgangsee and the ice cave and castle at Werfen are easy to reach on your own by bus or train.

For a bit of action, Hallein and Hohenwerfen Castle are good day trips from Salzburg: miners' slides underground in one, falconers and birds of prey in the other. For day trips from Salzburg in winter, pick the salt mines, the Königssee or the Untersberg; the Eisriesenwelt closes for the cold months. If you're still deciding how many days to give the city itself, our Salzburg Itinerary helps you see where a day out fits.

Long Day Trips from Salzburg: Consider a Tour

Hallstatt and Lake Hallstatt

If you only do one, make it Hallstatt. The village on Lake Hallstatt is part of the Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Salt was mined here as early as the 2nd millennium BC, and that salt paid for the fine houses you walk past today. Go for the lake views, the old town and the history underneath it; skip it if you want a quiet day, because Hallstatt is small and many people have the same idea.

Above the village, a funicular climbs to the Salzwelten Hallstatt salt mine. Before you go underground, the Skywalk viewing platform looks out over the lake. Inside the mountain you ride the mine train, slide down the miners' slides and reach an underground salt lake.

How to do it: Salzburg to Hallstatt by train means a change at Attnang-Puchheim onto the regional line toward Stainach-Irdning. Hallstatt station sits on the opposite shore, and a small ferry waits for every train to take you across to the village, which is the nicest way to arrive. By bus, take line 150 to Bad Ischl and continue on the same regional railway from there. A tour from Salzburg saves you the connections.

When to go: The salt mine stays open into the winter, so Hallstatt isn't only a summer trip. If you're coming from Vienna instead, Hallstatt is also on our list of Day Trips from Vienna.

Guided tours from Salzburg:

• Half-Day Tour to Hallstatt: there and back in half a day, so the rest of the day is still yours for Salzburg.
• Hallstatt and Sound of Music Tour: Hallstatt and the Sound of Music in one long day from Salzburg, if you want both without planning two trips.

Easy Day Trips from Salzburg by Bus or Train

Berchtesgaden and the Königssee

Berchtesgaden is across the border in Bavaria. On the Königssee, green water sits between rock walls so steep that the lake looks more like a fjord, with the Watzmann East Face above it and Berchtesgaden National Park all around. No road goes to St. Bartholomä, so the boat is how you reach its pilgrimage church and the red onion domes. On the crossing, the boatman lifts a trumpet toward the cliffs and lets the echo play the tune back.

How to do it: Salzburg to Berchtesgaden by public transport is one bus: line 840, the WATZMANNexpress, runs all year from Salzburg's main station and Mirabellplatz to Berchtesgaden and on to the Königssee. That makes the Königssee one of the easy day trips from Salzburg, with one bus each way.

When to go: The Königssee boats keep a winter timetable, so the lake works in winter too.

If you'd rather be driven:

• Königssee & Berchtesgaden Private Tour from Salzburg with Ferry Ticket: a private trip for your own group, with pickup available and the boat ticket for the Königssee included.

Salzwelten Salzburg: the Salt Mine in Hallein

For a salt mine, our pick is Salzwelten Salzburg on the Dürrnberg above Hallein, about 19 kilometers from the city. You pull on white miners' overalls, ride the mine train into the mountain, slide down two miners' slides and cross an underground salt lake on a raft. The tour walks back through 2,600 years of mining, from today to the Celtic miners of the Iron Age, and somewhere along the way you cross the underground border between Austria and Germany.

Don't mix it up with the Berchtesgaden Salt Mine on the German side, a separate mine that has been working since 1517 and sits on the bus route to Berchtesgaden. Both have slides and a mine train; Hallein adds the Celtic story above ground.

How to do it: By public transport, train and regional bus bring you from Salzburg to the Dürrnberg, and the operator sells a combined ticket with the travel included. The hop-on hop-off bus from Salzburg also goes there. Next to the mine, the Celtic Mountain has a rebuilt Celtic village and a play area for children, so plan a morning or an afternoon.

Book ahead:

• Salzwelten Salzburg: Salt Mine Entrance Ticket: skip-the-line entry to the guided tour inside the Dürrnberg; you get there by train and bus or on the hop-on hop-off bus.

Untersberg Cable Car

The Untersberg is Salzburg's own mountain, a massif on the border between Salzburg and Bavaria. The Untersbergbahn cable car has carried visitors up since 1961, from the valley station in St. Leonhard near Grödig to the mountain station on the Geiereck at 1,776 meters. From the top you look out over the city of Salzburg and the Berchtesgadener Land, and hiking trails lead on to the mountain huts.

How to do it: Bus line 25 runs from Salzburg's main station through the city center and past Hellbrunn Palace to the valley station, so between spring and autumn you can pair the cable car with the trick fountains on the way back. It's the closest of these trips and fits into half a day.

When to go: The cable car runs in winter too, with snowshoe routes on top, but it closes for several weeks of maintenance in spring and again in late autumn.

Wolfgangsee: St. Gilgen and St. Wolfgang

The Wolfgangsee is the lake day of the Salzkammergut: one bus takes you to its shore, and in season the lake boats do the rest. St. Gilgen, about 30 kilometers from Salzburg's old town, is where Mozart's mother Anna Maria Pertl was born in 1720, and his sister Nannerl later lived in the same house. Across the water, St. Wolfgang is a pilgrimage village, and its church holds the Gothic winged altar by Michael Pacher, finished in 1481 and 12.5 meters tall.

How to do it: Bus 150 from Salzburg's main station stops in St. Gilgen and Strobl. From there the lake boats connect St. Gilgen, Strobl and St. Wolfgang in season, and you can hop on and off. In St. Wolfgang, the SchafbergBahn, Austria's steepest cog railway, has climbed the Schafberg since 1893 and runs from spring into autumn.

Pairing idea: With a car, add the Mondsee, where the basilica of St. Michael served as the wedding church in The Sound of Music.

For a bigger day:

• Hallstatt, St.Gilgen & St. Wolfgang Day Trip: a private day trip with pickup available that adds Hallstatt to St. Gilgen and St. Wolfgang, without bus and boat timetables.

Werfen: Eisriesenwelt Ice Cave and Hohenwerfen Castle

Werfen, south of Salzburg in the Salzach valley, has two reasons to go. The Eisriesenwelt in the Tennen Mountains is the largest ice cave in the world. There's no electricity inside: you walk through by the light of carbide lamps and the white magnesium light of the guides, over about 1,400 steps, and it's usually below freezing even in summer.

Closer to the village, Hohenwerfen Castle sits on a rock above the Salzach, a fortified castle with 900 years of history. The castle tour runs from the torture chamber to the bell tower, the armory holds an exhibition on the Salzburg Peasants' War of 1525/26, and the falconers fly their birds of prey several times a day.

How to do it: Trains run from Salzburg to Werfen, and from the station a shady footpath leads up to the castle. For the ice cave, a shuttle bus goes from Werfen to the visitor center; from there it's a walk, the cable car and another walk to the cave entrance. The operator suggests allowing about 3 hours for the cave, so both sights make a full day.

When to go: The Eisriesenwelt closes over the winter, which makes Werfen a trip for the warmer half of the year.