Salzburg

Domes, fountains, Mozart on every chocolate box and a fortress glaring down from its rock. Salzburg is just over the border in Austria, and you can get there from Munich on a Bayern-Ticket.

SALZBURG: Some places I can’t help tying to one moment in history. Walk around Rome and you’re half expecting a gladiator fight to break out, or a few senators arguing on the steps. Tuscany is the Renaissance, full stop. And Berlin, even now, still has that East-meets-West, Cold War feel about it, as if somebody might hand you a microfilm at a bus stop.
Salzburg is the Baroque. It’s the 1700s with the colour turned up: onion domes and copper-green towers, fountains with stone horses rearing out of them, house fronts painted mustard, pink and pistachio, and gilded everything. This was the city of the prince-archbishops, who ran it as their own little state for centuries and hired Italian architects to make it look like Rome, which is why people still call it the “Rome of the North”. And it’s Mozart’s town. He was born here in 1756, and his face is on chocolate boxes, tea towels, posters and mugs on just about every street.
I’ve been to Salzburg a few times now and it’s one of my favourite day trips from Munich. It’s also one of the most popular, and it’s easy to see why.

THE VIEW: The old town’s domes and towers from the Mönchsberg, with the Hohensalzburg fortress on its rock. Picture: Stu Anderson

Getting there with the Bayern-Ticket

Salzburg is in Austria, but the Bayern-Ticket is valid all the way to Salzburg Hauptbahnhof on regional trains. That makes it one of the cheapest foreign trips you’ll ever take.
• The trains. Regional trains run every hour from Munich to Salzburg, via Rosenheim, Traunstein and Freilassing, and take just under two hours.
• The price. A Bayern-Ticket costs €34 for one person, and each extra person adds €10, up to five people for €74. That’s the price online or from the machine; at a staffed counter it’s €2 more.
• The catch. On weekdays it’s only valid from 9am (all day at weekends and on holidays), and it doesn’t cover Salzburg’s city buses. You won’t need them. The old town is about a 20-minute walk from the station, and the walk takes you through the Mirabell Gardens.
• Deutschland-Ticket. If you’ve got one, it also takes you to Salzburg Hauptbahnhof on regional trains.
• In a hurry? The fast long-distance trains do it in about an hour and a half, but you’ll need a normal ticket for those.

The best way to arrive in a city

I’ve arrived in a lot of European cities by train, and I can’t think of many that beat this one. Just before the station, the train crosses the River Salzach, and for a few seconds the whole old town is laid out upstream: the domes, the church towers, the green river and the fortress sitting on top of the lot, with the mountains behind. Get a seat on the right-hand side and keep your camera ready. It goes quickly.

THE SALZACH: The river that splits the city in two. The old town is on the left bank, the station on the right. Picture: Stu Anderson

The Baroque old town

The old town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and it’s small enough to see on foot in a day. Start at the Cathedral (Dom), the big Italian-style church that the prince-archbishops consecrated in 1628, with its twin towers and a huge dome. Mozart was baptised here. Inside it’s white, gold and enormous.

THE DOM: Salzburg Cathedral and the Marian column on Domplatz. Picture: Stu Anderson

LOOK UP: The nave and dome of the cathedral. Picture: Stu Anderson

Either side of the cathedral are two big squares. Residenzplatz has a huge Baroque fountain with horses spouting water, the prince-archbishops’ palace (the Residenz) and a tower with a glockenspiel. On Kapitelplatz, round the back, there’s a giant golden ball with a little man standing on top of it. It’s called Sphaera, it’s by the German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol, and it’s been there since 2007. It makes a great photo with the fortress behind it.

RESIDENZPLATZ: The Residenz fountain, with the glockenspiel tower on the right. Picture: Stu Anderson

GOLDEN BALL: Balkenhol’s Sphaera on Kapitelplatz, under the Hohensalzburg fortress. Picture: Stu Anderson

Then head for the Getreidegasse, the long, narrow shopping street where every shop hangs a wrought-iron sign over the door. It gets packed, but it’s lovely. At number 9, behind the yellow front, is Mozart’s birthplace (Mozarts Geburtshaus). He was born there on 27 January 1756, and the flat is now a museum.

GETREIDEGASSE: Shop signs all the way down Salzburg’s best-known street. Picture: Stu Anderson

WHERE IT STARTED: The plaque on Mozart’s birthplace. Picture: Stu Anderson

At the far end of the Getreidegasse, keep an eye out for the Pferdeschwemme. It’s a Baroque horse bath where the prince-archbishop’s horses were washed, with the cliff of the Mönchsberg behind it and the wall painted with prancing horses. Only in Salzburg would somebody go to that much trouble over a horse trough.

A BATH FIT FOR A HORSE: The Pferdeschwemme, at the foot of the Mönchsberg. Picture: Stu Anderson

Above all of it is the Hohensalzburg, the prince-archbishops’ fortress. You can walk up or take the funicular, and the views from the top are huge.

Up the hills: the Mönchsberg and the Kapuzinerberg

Salzburg has a hill on each side of the river, and on more than one trip we’ve hiked up one or the other. If you only do one thing in Salzburg that costs nothing, make it this. You’re out of the crowds in ten minutes, and the views over the city and across to the mountains are some of the best I know.
The Mönchsberg is the long wooded cliff on the old town side. On my 2011 trip we walked up from Mülln, past the church and up a quiet lane and path through the woods. Up top there are paths along the ridge, bits of the old town walls, a castle that’s now a hotel (Schloss Mönchstein), glimpses of the fortress through the trees, and views across the plain to the Untersberg.

THE WAY UP: The lane up the Mönchsberg from Mülln. Picture: Stu Anderson

UP THE RIVER: The Salzach from the top of the Mönchsberg. Picture: Stu Anderson

MOUNTAIN VIEW: Looking across to the Untersberg from the Mönchsberg. Picture: Stu Anderson

THROUGH THE TREES: The fortress from the woods on the Mönchsberg. Picture: Stu Anderson

If your legs aren’t up to it, the MönchsbergAufzug lift goes up through the rock from Anton-Neumayr-Platz in about 30 seconds and comes out at the Museum der Moderne. In 2026 it cost €3.40 one way or €4.80 return.
If you come down on the Mülln side, you end up at the Augustiner Bräu at Kloster Mülln, which is reason enough on its own. They’ve been brewing at the foot of the Mönchsberg since 1621, the beer is poured from wooden barrels into stone mugs, and there’s a big beer garden under the chestnut trees. Even a Munich beer snob would struggle to complain.
The Kapuzinerberg is on the other side of the river, rising to 640 metres right behind the Linzer Gasse. We went up it on my first trip. The main path starts on the Linzer Gasse and climbs past chapels for the Stations of the Cross to the Capuchin monastery. It’s steeper and wilder than the Mönchsberg, and it feels a long way from the city.
Near the top I found a Mozart memorial with a nice story behind it. From 1877 to 1948, the little garden house where Mozart composed The Magic Flute in 1791 stood on this spot, after it was brought here from Vienna. It was moved again after the war, into the garden of the Mozarteum. The words on the memorial sum him up well: Jung groß, spät erkannt, nie erreicht (young and great, recognised late, never equalled).

MOZART ON THE HILL: The memorial where the Magic Flute house once stood. Picture: Stu Anderson

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK: On the Kapuzinerberg, looking out over the hills. Picture: Stu Anderson

Mirabell and The Sound of Music

On the station side of the river are the Mirabell Gardens, all flowerbeds, fountains and statues, with a view straight across to the fortress. If they look familiar, that’s because of The Sound of Music. Julie Andrews and the von Trapp children sing “Do-Re-Mi” here, dancing round the fountain and up and down the steps by the Pegasus fountain, and the little Dwarf Garden next door makes a cameo too.

DO-RE-MI: The Mirabell Gardens, with the fortress on the skyline. Picture: Stu Anderson

The film came out in 1965 and people still come from all over the world for it. Other locations you can visit include Nonnberg Abbey, where Maria is a trainee nun, Leopoldskron Palace (the back of it played the von Trapp house) and the glass gazebo from “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”, which now stands in the park at Hellbrunn Palace. There are plenty of Sound of Music tours if you want somebody to sing along with.
And it’s got its own museum now. A Sound of Music museum opened at Hellbrunn Palace on 20 September 2026, with about 450 objects including props and costumes from the film, posters and recordings, and the gazebo as its centrepiece. In 2026 it’s open daily until 1 November and then reopens next March.

SHADY WALK: The leafy tunnel in the Mirabell Gardens. Picture: Stu Anderson

The museum every Austrian has been to

A friend from Salzburg once told me that every Austrian goes to the Haus der Natur at least three times while they’re growing up: once with their parents, once with their grandparents and once with their school. I can’t vouch for every Austrian, but it gets plenty of visitors, a record 384,136 in 2023.
It’s Salzburg’s museum of nature and science, on Museumsplatz near the Getreidegasse, and it’s been going since the 1920s. Inside you’ll find dinosaurs, the Ice Age, a space hall, an aquarium, a reptile zoo and a hands-on science centre. It’s a great one for kids, or for a wet afternoon. It’s open every day from 9am to 5pm, and tickets are €16 for adults, €10.50 for children aged 4 to 15 and €48 for a family.

Getting there

• Bayern-Ticket. Valid on regional trains to Salzburg Hauptbahnhof. €34 for one person, plus €10 for each extra person, up to five. From 9am on weekdays, all day at weekends.
• Regional trains. Hourly from Munich, just under two hours.
• Fast trains. About an hour and a half, normal tickets only.
• From the station. About 20 minutes’ walk to the old town, through the Mirabell Gardens.
• Mönchsberg lift. €3.40 one way, €4.80 return (2026).
• Haus der Natur. Daily 9am to 5pm, adults €16.
Checked October 2026. Times and prices change, so check before you go.

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