Salzburg Austria

My husband and I decided to spend our 20th wedding anniversary in Austria - we honestly didn’t care too much about the destination, but we knew we wanted to visit Europe. We like to use our travel points for flights, and since my brother is the points guru in the family, he found us flights to Vienna via Frankfurt on Discover Airlines and Austrian Airlines. I thought they were both great and would fly with them again.

Today I am going to cover the first part of our trip, which was 3 nights in Salzburg. I had visited the city for one day with the Wartburg Choir back in 2002 and I have always wanted to go back. We took the train from Vienna and it was about a 2 ½ hour journey. It was very easy, though, and we waited to purchase our tickets from a kiosk once we landed. 

Salzburg  is an extremely old city, but very easy to get around. We even walked from the train station, which was about 2 miles away. We could have taken public transportation, but we decided to walk since we had been sitting on the airplane and train for so long. 

We stayed in the Old Town at the Radisson Blu Hotel Altstadt, which is in a UNESCO World Heritage Site building that dates back to 1377. It was a perfect location for us and allowed us to easily walk everywhere we wanted to go. My one complaint was the tiny shower with a sprayer that did not stay on the holder, but this is not uncommon in many European hotels so it wasn’t a deal breaker. The rest of the room was gorgeous and big. I did book us in a superior room and it was worth it.

The first night we were super tired, so we didn’t wander much. We found some schnitzel for dinner (as you do in Austria) and walked around Old Town a little.

Mozart’s birthplace is right on the main street here, too. They have turned it into a museum, but we didn’t go in. You can also go to the Mozart Haus, which is a short walk and is also a museum.

I always recommend staying up until at least 8pm your first day in Europe so you can reset your body clock. It is tempting to go to sleep in the afternoon, but you will be much better off the rest of your trip if you keep yourself awake longer!

When I visited Salzburg in 2002, I didn’t have enough time to do the big Sound of Music tour. I have been a fan of that movie my whole life and have many good memories watching it at my grandma’s house over Christmas when it was on TV and then showing it and teaching it to my students as a music teacher. Aaron was a good sport and came on the tour with me this time. It was pretty much the only thing I requested to do while we were there.

Lake used in the famous boat scene and what was used as the back of the house in the movie

I loved every second of the tour. I highly recommend it if you are also a fan. I will do a longer blog post about it another day! 

Since we did the tour in the morning, we decided to venture up to the Salzburg Fortress in the afternoon. I booked our tickets online and made sure it included admission to everything, including the Funicular that took you up the hill. You can walk it, but as you can see in the video, it is pretty steep! The 60 second ride was well worth the small amount extra it cost for the round trip ride. 

The views from the top of the Fortress were stunning. It was also interesting to walk around and a good way to pass some time and learn a little about the history of the city. 

Our next day was spent taking a tour to Hallstadt, which is a small town in the lakes and mountains region that was the inspiration for the look of Arendelle in the movie Frozen. It was a little over 2 hours away from Salzburg, so we booked a tour that took us there via bus, dropped us off for a few hours, and then took us back. It seemed like the least stressful way to get there and we learned some interesting facts from the guide along the way. You can take the train and then a ferry over to the town if you choose, too.

We went in the morning, which is good because as our guide mentioned, by the afternoon it gets much busier. Only about 1000 people actually live there, but at times they can have up to 10,000 tourists visiting in just one day! We definitely noticed how much busier it was by the time we left versus when we arrived. We did not do any hiking, but there are apparently some beautiful waterfalls to see. We wanted to explore the town and not have to rush through hiking. It would be beautiful and fun to do if you weren’t on a short time schedule

It was a lovely spot for taking pictures and we enjoyed walking around. I was neat to see the town and I would go back to visit the waterfalls!

If you are looking to save some money on meals, I recommend finding a grocery store! We went to find some lunch after our tour returned and spent less than 20 euros on a whole bag of food and drinks. The sandwiches were delicious, too.

We went on a coffee adventure after we rested a bit. Aaron found a place online called Nur Coffee that makes a waffolino, which is one shot of espresso and steamed milk in a chocolate lined waffle cone. It was both beautiful AND delicious! Definitely worth a stop.

2 full days in Salzburg was a good amount of time. If we had an extra day or if we would have stayed longer in Hallstadt, we would have toured the salt mines. It sounded fascinating and was part of the reason Salzburg was a wealthy city back in the day when salt was considered extremely valuable.

Do you have any questions about our trip? Are you ready to go on your own adventure? Let me know in the comments!