Our Take on the Best Things to Do in Salzburg
Most of the best things to do in Salzburg sit within a short walk of each other, and for a first visit that's the city's big advantage. You can spend the morning in Salzburg Cathedral and the DomQuartier, go up to Hohensalzburg Fortress before lunch, and still cross the river to the Mozart Residence in the afternoon. For day one we'd pick the fortress, the cathedral, one Mozart house and a slow walk through the lanes of the Salzburg Old Town, and we'd save the city hills, Hellbrunn and the smaller places for day two.
If you only have time for one of the two Mozart museums, choose Mozart’s Birthplace: it's the house where he was born and where the family lived for 26 years. The Residence across the river is the roomier visit, with his own pianoforte and many original documents and portraits. The place we'd argue hardest for on a short trip is Hellbrunn Palace, south of the center. A prince-archbishop built it to amuse his guests with hidden water jets, and the trick fountains still catch people out.
Two or three days is a comfortable length for the things to do in Salzburg on this page. Our Salzburg itinerary plans the city day by day, and if you want lakes and mountains as well, Day Trips from Salzburg covers what lies beyond the city.
Guided Tours & Activities
- Mozart Concert at Mirabell Palace: An hour and a half of Mozart at Mirabell Palace, an easy evening after a day in the Old Town.
- Organ Concert at Midday: A 30-minute concert at noon featuring multiple organs played simultaneously. An extraordinary acoustic experience.
- Amphibious Splash Tour on Land & on Water: An amphibious vehicle that drives on land and goes into the water, with an optional audio guide; a change of pace after a morning on foot.
- Best of Mozart Fortress Concert: Mozart’s music inside the fortress, high on its rock above the city.
- Salzburg: Old Town, Mozart & Mirabell Gardens Walking Tour: Two hours on foot through the Old Town and the Mirabell Gardens, with Mozart along the way, a sensible start on your first morning.
Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Archbishops’ Palaces
Hohensalzburg Fortress stands on the Festungsberg, the rock that rises directly above the Old Town. Archbishop Gebhard began building it in 1077, his successors kept adding to it, and by around 1500, under Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach, it looked much as it does today. Foreign troops never captured it. The Festungsbahn funicular has run up from Festungsgasse since 1892; the footpath is the other way in.
The palaces came later and were built for pleasure rather than defense. Mirabell Palace began in 1606 as Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau's palace for Salome Alt and their children, and at Hellbrunn, south of the center, his successor Markus Sittikus built a summer residence between 1613 and 1615 with water as its main idea.
Begun in 1077, it is the biggest fully preserved castle in Central Europe. On the third floor, the Golden Hall and the Golden Room keep furnishings unchanged since 1501/1502, and the Panorama Tour takes you up the keep to its observation platform.
Built in 1606 for Salome Alt and later rebuilt as a baroque palace. You can see the Marble Hall, where Leopold Mozart and his children performed, and Georg Raphael Donner’s Angel Staircase; the rest of the building houses the mayor’s office and the city administration.
Reshaped around 1690 to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, with a sightline across the parterre to the cathedral and the fortress. Maria and the children sing Do-Re-Mi around the Pegasus Fountain here in The Sound of Music.
Markus Sittikus’s summer palace, designed by Santino Solari, the architect of the cathedral. The Mannerist trick fountains are the reason to come, and the hidden jets still catch visitors out.
Salzburg Cathedral, the DomQuartier and the Archbishops’ Squares
Salzburg Cathedral, the Residenz and the squares around them form the ensemble between the river and the fortress rock. It took shape after about 1600, when Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau set out to rebuild Salzburg as a baroque city with an Italian look, a project the prince-archbishops after him completed. Making room for Residenzplatz alone meant tearing down 55 medieval buildings.
The DomQuartier, opened in 2014, lets you walk the whole complex as one route for the first time in 200 years: the Residenz state rooms, the Dome Terrace, the organ gallery inside the cathedral and the museums of St. Peter’s Abbey. The Franciscan Church next door is probably older than the cathedral and has kept its Romanesque nave and Late Gothic chancel.
Santino Solari’s cathedral, consecrated in 1628 and the first early Baroque church north of the Alps. Mozart and Joseph Mohr, who wrote the words of Silent Night, were baptized in its bronze font from 1311.
One route through the Residenz state rooms, the cathedral’s organ gallery and the museums of St. Peter’s Abbey. In the Residenz, the seven-year-old Mozart gave his first Salzburg court concert.
Laid out under Wolf Dietrich to plans by Vincenzo Scamozzi. The Residence Fountain at its center has four horses bursting from the rock and a Triton blowing a jet of water from a conch shell.
The square you cross on the way to the funicular and St. Peter’s Cemetery, with the 1732 Kapitelschwemme, a Neptune fountain on the site of a medieval horse pond, a giant chessboard and Stephan Balkenhol’s Sphaera.
A dark Romanesque nave that opens into a light Late Gothic chancel with star vaulting. The high altar by Fischer von Erlach holds a Madonna and Child by Michael Pacher.
Mozart’s Salzburg
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, in a third-floor apartment on the Getreidegasse. In 1773 the family moved across the river to the Dance Master's House on Makartplatz, and Mozart lived there until he left for Vienna in 1781. Both addresses are museums of the International Mozarteum Foundation: Mozart’s Birthplace and the Mozart Residence. The cathedral where he was baptized and the Residenz where he played as a court musician belong to the same walk.
The Mozarteum Foundation first opened a museum in the house in 1880. Today it follows his childhood, the long years of travel and his death, and the historical instruments include his own violin and clavichord.
The family’s eight-room apartment on the first floor, largely destroyed in 1944, rebuilt to the original plans and reopened in 1996. Mozart’s pianoforte is here, and the small Magic Flute house stands in the courtyard.
Ludwig Schwanthaler’s Mozart statue was unveiled in 1842 with Mozart’s sons present, a year late, because a Roman mosaic turned up in the ground. A copy of the mosaic lies at the foot of the statue.
The Lanes of the Salzburg Old Town
Much of the Salzburg Old Town is at its best between the big sights. On the Getreidegasse, the windows get smaller from floor to floor, guild signs hang over the lane, and through-houses lead under arcades from one street to the next; the best known runs from the Schatz House to Universitätsplatz. Alter Markt, Goldgasse and Judengasse carry the walk on toward Residenzplatz, and on the Hofstallgasse the Felsenreitschule and the Grosses Festspielhaus stand side by side, the main stages of the Salzburg Festival.
Across the river, the Linzergasse and the Steingasse follow the old roads out of town, one toward Linz and Vienna, the other south toward Italy.
The name has nothing to do with grain: it grew out of Trabegasse, from an old word for trotting. Look up for the guild signs; Wieber, a metalworking shop on the lane, still makes them by hand.
A market square since the 13th century, framed by town houses with medieval cores. The market fountain dates from 1488, and St. Florian has stood on its column since 1734.
Named for the goldsmiths who worked here, a narrow lane of five- and six-story houses between Residenzplatz and Alter Markt. In 1700, Jean Fontaine received a license to serve coffee in the Reitsamerhaus; his coffeehouse later moved to Alter Markt as Café Tomaselli.
The continuation of the Getreidegasse and, until the expulsion of 1498, the center of Salzburg’s Jewish community. A synagogue once stood at number 15, and number 3 has the only purely Jugendstil doorway in the city.
More Lanes to Explore
On the Hofstallgasse, the festival street, the Felsenreitschule and the Grosses Festspielhaus stand side by side. The Toscaninihof is a courtyard at the foot of the Mönchsberg, where Stephan Balkenhol’s Woman in the Rock hides in a niche of the rock face. Across the river, the Linzergasse is the pedestrian street of the right bank, and the Steingasse, one of its oldest streets, follows the old road south to Italy.
The City Hills and the Salzach Footbridges
Salzburg sits between its city hills, and two of them rise straight out of the center. The long ridge of the Mönchsberg rises directly behind the Old Town on the left bank; the MönchsbergAufzug lift climbs 60 meters inside the rock from the Gstättengasse in 30 seconds, and paths run along the top past the Museum der Moderne. The Kapuzinerberg, 640 meters high, is the wilder hill on the right bank, with a Capuchin monastery in the forest and a colony of wild chamois.
Down at the river, the footbridges are reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. Each one lines up the Old Town and the fortress a little differently, and crossing them is a pleasant way to switch between the two banks.
The lift from the Gstättengasse is the quick way up. On top, walking paths lead through meadows and forest past old fortifications and the Museum der Moderne, which opened in 2004.
From the Linzergasse, a path climbs past the Stations of the Cross to the Capuchin monastery. The Hettwer Bastion looks across to the fortress, and Stefan Zweig lived in the Paschinger Schlössl from 1919 to 1934.
The Marko-Feingold-Steg (formerly Makartsteg) is the footbridge where couples fix love padlocks to the balustrade and throw the key into the Salzach.
An Art Nouveau footbridge where you had to pay a toll to cross until 1921. The old toll house still stands and now holds the smallest coffee shop in Salzburg.
The footbridge furthest downstream of these three, worth adding if you keep walking along the river.
Unique Things to Do in Salzburg
Some of the more unusual things to do in Salzburg come from its breweries, its monasteries and Red Bull. Stiegl has been brewing since 1492 and is Austria's biggest private brewery; its Stiegl-Brauwelt shows how the beer is made. Augustiner Bräu Kloster Mülln, founded by Augustinian hermits, has been brewing since 1621. The Stiftsbäckerei St. Peter, Salzburg's oldest bakery, still bakes in its original wood-fired oven, and out at the airport, Red Bull Hangar-7 keeps the historic aircraft of The Flying Bulls under a roof of glass and steel.
A glass and steel building inspired by a wing, holding the airworthy historic aircraft of The Flying Bulls, Formula 1 cars and changing exhibitions of contemporary art.
The visitor world of Stiegl, Austria’s biggest private brewery, where brewery tours look into the brewing kettles and the bottling plant, tasting included.
Austria’s biggest beer hall, founded by Augustinian hermits in 1621. The beer comes from wooden barrels into stone mugs, and the food from the stalls of the Schmankerlgang.
First recorded in the 12th century, when the monastery built a mill and a bakery where the Almkanal comes out of the Mönchsberg. The sourdough bread still comes out of the original wood-fired oven, and the mill wheel by the entrance has been rebuilt.
