A Salzburg travel guide to the baroque Old Town, Mozart's birthplace, Hohensalzburg Fortress, the city's cafés and beer halls, and the lakes beyond.
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Salzburg is a small city on the Salzach River in north-central Austria, close to the Bavarian border, where the northern foothills of the Alps begin. This is our Salzburg travel guide: what to see, where to eat and sleep, how many days to plan, and where to go once you know the Old Town. The region owes its name and its wealth to salt, the "white gold" of the surrounding mountains. Salt, silver and gold made the prince-archbishops, who ruled Salzburg as a church state of its own, rich enough to rebuild their capital in the image of papal Rome.
That rebuilding is the Salzburg Old Town you walk through today. Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had studied in Rome and brought its architecture home, and his successors spent the 17th and 18th centuries finishing what he started, the cathedral and Mirabell Palace among them. The historic center has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. Above it sits Hohensalzburg Fortress, begun in 1077. Below, on the Getreidegasse, stands the house where Mozart was born on 27 January 1756.
Music carries the rest of the story. The Salzburg Festival dates its birth to 22 August 1920, when Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann was first performed on Cathedral Square, and today it fills July and August with opera, drama and concerts. The Sound of Music was filmed in and around the city in 1964, from the Mirabell Gardens to the lakes of the Salzkammergut.
UNESCO World Heritage since 1996
The historic center, reshaped in baroque style by the prince-archbishops from the 1600s.
Mozart’s Hometown
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born here on 27 January 1756; his birthplace is now a museum.
The Salzburg Festival
Opera, drama and concerts every July and August, since the first Jedermann on Cathedral Square in 1920.
Hohensalzburg Fortress
Begun in 1077, the largest fully preserved castle in Central Europe and never taken by foreign troops.
The Sound of Music
The 1965 film, winner of five Oscars, was shot in and around the city.
Built on Salt
Salt mined in the mountains nearby gave the city its name and paid for much of what you see.
Gateway to the Salzkammergut
Lakes, salt mines and Hallstatt all make easy day trips from the city.
Made for Walking
Most sights are close enough to reach on foot, on both banks of the Salzach.
Rome of the North
The nickname comes from the churches and palaces the prince-archbishops modeled on papal Rome.
Paintings, prints, photographs and sculpture from the years between the wars follow the New Objectivity from the studio into the big city, the theater and the night, with Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad and Lotte Laserstein.
Nov 06, 2026 - Feb 28, 2027 Now
Eiszauber, an open-air ice rink on Mozartplatz, the old-town square with the Mozart statue at its center. Skate hire on site, a punch stand, and the cathedral quarter just around the corner.
Nov 12, 2026 - Jan 31, 2027 Now
Nov 13, 2026 - Dec 20, 2026 Now
Nov 19, 2026 - Jan 06, 2027
Contemporary circus under heated tents in the Volksgarten: hand-picked international companies bring acrobatics, poetry and offbeat humor, with food on site before and after the show.
Nov 25, 2026 - Jan 06, 2027
We'd give the city itself two full days, and this Salzburg travel guide is built around that. Salzburg is small, and that works in your favor: Hohensalzburg Fortress, the squares around Salzburg Cathedral, Mozart’s Birthplace and the Mirabell Gardens are all a walk apart. One day covers the names everyone knows. The second is the one we'd protect, because that's when you have time for the hills, a long coffee and the other side of the river.
Start in the Old Town on the left bank; it earns the attention. The DomQuartier alone, one route through the prince-archbishops' state rooms, the cathedral and St Peter's Abbey, is worth a morning. But we'd cross the Salzach early. The Linzergasse and the narrow Steingasse feel calmer, and the path up the Kapuzinerberg ends at a lookout that puts the fortress and the domes in front of you instead of below you.
The two town hills cost nothing to walk. The funicular to the fortress saves your legs, but the path along the wooded Mönchsberg toward Mülln keeps the Old Town and its churches below you most of the way, and it ends near Augustiner Bräu Kloster Mülln, where beer has been brewed since 1621.
If a third day is possible, take it outside the city. The Salzkammergut lakes and the salt mines are close enough that Salzburg works as a base, and our Salzburg itinerary looks at how many days to give it. The rest of this Salzburg travel guide fills in both city days: the quieter corners, the cafés and the views.
Salzburg is small enough that where you stay shapes the mood more than the logistics. On the left bank you're inside the Old Town, among the lanes around the Getreidegasse and the cathedral. Across the Salzach, the streets around the Linzergasse and the Mirabell Gardens are a short walk over the footbridges. Near the main station you trade the view for value and fast trains. The hotels in this Salzburg travel guide run from Hotel Stein, whose rooftop terrace faces the Old Town, to the Goldener Hirsch on the Getreidegasse and simple bases by the station; our guide to where to stay in Salzburg sorts them by area and style.
