Salzburg is the capital of the Austrian federal state of Salzburg and the fourth-largest city in Austria — a city of 155,000 on the Salzach River at the foot of the Berchtesgaden Alps, 140 km east of Munich, 300 km west of Vienna. Salzburg is synonymous with two things: Mozart and The Sound of Music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born here on January 27, 1756 at Getreidegasse 9 — the most visited birth house in the world of a classical composer — and Salzburg is the home of the Salzburg Festival (founded 1920, the world's most prestigious classical music festival: 5 weeks in July-August, 200+ performances of opera, drama and concerts, 250,000 visitors; tickets sell out within hours of release, often the same day; the Felsenreitschule — the open-air stage carved into the rock face of the Mönchsberg cliff — is the most dramatic outdoor opera venue in the world). The Sound of Music (the 1965 Robert Wise film with Julie Andrews, filmed almost entirely in and around Salzburg, the third highest-grossing film of all time when released, still generating 300,000 Sound of Music tourists per year in Salzburg) uses the Mirabell Gardens, the Nonnberg Abbey, the Mondsee Cathedral, and the Leopoldskron Palace as its key filming locations. The historic centre of Salzburg (UNESCO World Heritage since 1996 — awarded for the finest surviving Baroque urban ensemble north of the Alps) has the Cathedral (Dom, 1628, the first example of Baroque architecture north of the Alps), the Residenz (the archbishop's palace), the Stift Nonnberg (the oldest working Benedictine convent in the German-speaking world, founded 714 AD — the real convent where Maria von Trapp was a novice), the Hohensalzburg Fortress (1077, the largest fully preserved medieval castle in Central Europe), and the Getreidegasse — one of the most photographed streets in Austria, with its Gothic merchant townhouses and guild iron signs.
The Mozart Geburtshaus (Mozart's Birthplace, Getreidegasse 9, 3rd floor) is the most-visited composer's birth house in the world — Mozart was born here on 27 January 1756 and the family lived here until 1773; the apartment (maintained as museum since 1880) has Mozart's childhood violin, his first clavichord, family portraits, manuscript facsimiles and the gilded cradle; the Getreidegasse itself (the Gothic main commercial street with its distinctive hand-forged guild iron signs hanging above every shop — the silhouette signs of the cobbler, the pharmacist, the goldsmith — are the most photographed street-level detail in Salzburg) is below.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Festung Hohensalzburg (the Hohensalzburg Fortress, founded 1077 by Archbishop Gebhard during the Investiture Controversy, expanded continuously through the 15th and 16th centuries — the largest and best-preserved medieval fortification in Central Europe and one of the finest in the world) rises 120 m above the old town on the Festungsberg cliff; the funicular (Festungsbahn) or 20-min walk up; the State Rooms (the Golden Chamber with the ornate green-and-gold ceramic stove — the Kachelofen — the finest example of a Gothic heated room in Central Europe), the Museum in the Round Tower, and the view from the fortress walls across the Salzach valley and the Alpine horizon.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Salzburg Dom (the Cathedral, 1614-1628, Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau's greatest project — the first Baroque cathedral north of the Alps and still one of the finest Baroque sacred buildings in German-speaking Europe; capacity 10,000; Mozart was baptised here on 28 January 1756) and the Residenz (the Archbishop's Palace, remodelled in Italian Baroque style by the same archbishop 1595-1619; the state rooms with their Baroque ceiling frescoes, the Carabinieri Hall, and the Residenzgalerie art museum with Flemish and Dutch old master paintings).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Stiftskeller St. Peter (within the courtyard of the St. Peter Abbey, Salzburg's oldest monastery, founded by Saint Rupert in 696 AD) claims to be the oldest documented restaurant in Europe — the wine cellar is mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne in 803 AD; the restaurant serves Austrian and Salzburg cuisine (Tafelspitz, Wiener Schnitzel, Kaiserschmarrn) in the medieval vaulted dining rooms; the Benedictine monks of St. Peter Abbey still produce the Stiftsbackerei bread in the adjacent bakery (800+ years of continuous operation — the oldest bakery in Austria).
The Mirabell Palace (1606, Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau built it for his mistress Salome Alt — with whom he had 15 children — the most scandalous love affair of any prince-archbishop in the Holy Roman Empire; remodelled in Baroque style 1721-1727 by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt after a fire) and the Mirabell Gardens (the Baroque formal garden with the fountain, the trimmed yews, the stone dwarfs and the stone balustrade) are the setting of the "Do-Re-Mi" song filming in The Sound of Music (1965) — specifically the steps, the fountain and the Pegasus fountain; the Marble Hall within (the finest Baroque concert hall in Salzburg, still used for Mozart Serenades) is free to enter.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Sound of Music locations tour (3 hrs, multiple operators from Mirabellplatz) visits the Stift Nonnberg (the Benedictine convent on the Festungsberg, founded 714 AD by Saint Rupert, the oldest continuously operating nunnery in the German-speaking world — the real convent where Maria von Trapp was a postulant; only the church is open to visitors; the facade appears in the opening of The Sound of Music), Schloss Leopoldskron (the 1736 Rococo palace on the Leopoldskron Lake, used as the exterior and grounds for the von Trapp family home — now a hotel; the terrace scene where the children fall into the lake was filmed here) and the Mondsee Cathedral (45 km east, where the wedding scene was filmed).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideSchloss Hellbrunn (1615, Archbishop Markus Sittikus, 4 km south of Salzburg) is one of the most unusual palaces in Europe — built not as a residence but purely as an entertainment and pleasure venue for the archbishop to host and prank his noble guests; the entire gardens are filled with 18th-century hydraulic trick fountains (Wasserspiele) designed to spray visitors without warning: the dining table has jets concealed in every seat (the archbishop's seat alone is dry), the grotto has puppet theatre operated by water pressure, and hundreds of nozzles hidden in paths, benches and statues soak the unsuspecting; the guided tour is the most entertaining palace experience in Austria.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Stiftskeller Mozart Dinner Concert (the most popular evening in Salzburg — performers in period costumes play Mozart's greatest works — Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Symphony No. 40, piano concertos — while a 3-course Austrian dinner is served in the candlelit medieval stone vaulted dining room of the Stiftskeller St. Peter; the concert has run every night for 40+ years) or alternatively the evening Festung concerts at the Hohensalzburg (chamber music in the fortress above the city, 20h00, May-October); the old town at night — the Getreidegasse gas lanterns, the Dom square floodlit — is the finest night scene in Alpine Europe.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Kehlsteinhaus (the Eagle's Nest — Bormann's 50th birthday gift to Hitler, 1938, 1,834 m on the Kehlstein peak above Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, 30 km from Salzburg — now a restaurant and memorial) is reached by a 6.5 km mountain road cut through solid rock (the most daring mountain engineering project of the Third Reich, completed in 13 months by 3,000 workers) ending at a brass-and-marble elevator shaft cut 124 m through the rock to the summit; the Kehlsteinhaus itself (where Hitler met Chamberlain, Mussolini and Franco; where Eva Braun spent significant time) has a terrace with a 360° view across the Berchtesgaden Alps into Austria, Italy and Czech Republic.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Königssee (the King's Lake, 7 km south of Berchtesgaden, 190 m deep — the deepest lake in Germany) is the most dramatically beautiful lake in Bavaria — the electric silent boats (no motorboats permitted since 1909 to preserve the silence) glide through a fjord-like passage between vertical 2,000 m granite walls for 5.5 km to the St. Bartholomä pilgrimage church (the red-domed Baroque church built on a peninsula — the most photographed church in Bavaria); the boatman stops midway and plays a trumpet fanfare so passengers can hear the 7-fold echo bouncing between the cliffs; the lake freezes solid in winter and hosts ice skating championships.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Kapuzinerberg (the wooded hill on the east bank of the Salzach, opposite the old town, with a Capuchin monastery, and the Stefanie Wall — part of the medieval fortifications that became a lovers' walk with carved inscriptions; Stefan Zweig lived in the villa on the Kapuzinerberg 1917-1934 before fleeing the Nazis, and wrote his memoir "The World of Yesterday" about this view of Salzburg) gives the finest panoramic view of the old town, the fortress, the Dom and the Alps beyond; the golden hour light on the Baroque city is the most-photographed Salzburg moment.
Café Tomaselli (Alter Markt, Salzburg, founded 1703 — the oldest café in Austria still in operation, the rival claim to Vienna's Café Hawelka; the wood-panelled room with marble tables, the Viennese coffee specialties, the newspaper reading stands and the selection of Salzburg Konditorei cakes) and the Mozartkugel (the chocolate praline invented by Paul Fürst in Salzburg in 1890: a marzipan and pistachio nougat ball dipped in dark chocolate — the original handmade Fürst Mozartkugel wrapped in silver-gold foil is the authentic version, very different from the mass-produced Reber red-and-gold Mozartkugeln from Bad Reichenhall) for the definitive Salzburg farewell.