Salzburg looks expensive until you realise its best hours are free — the Mirabell parterre, two forested city mountains and the Salzach embankments cost nothing. Add a €2 catacomb, a €4.90 sausage and a monastery tankard, and three days stay under €110.
Laid out in 1690, the baroque parterre with the Pegasus fountain and the Do-Re-Mi steps is free from 06:00 to dusk. Behind the hedge maze sit the 17th-century Zwergerlgarten dwarfs, carved from Untersberg marble and skipped by most tour groups.
The arcaded cemetery beside St Peter's Abbey has been in use since 1627 and costs nothing to wander; the rock-cut catacombs in the Mönchsberg cliff above it are €2 (€1.50 reduced), open 10:00-12:30 and 13:00-17:00 in summer.
Cross the Salzach into medieval Steingasse, then climb the Imbergstiege stairs to the Kapuzinerberg. The wooded ridge path passes Stefan Zweig's former villa and the Franziskischlössl, with the whole old town laid out below. Gates close at dusk.
Take the free Toscaninihof stairs rather than the €4.60 return lift and follow the cliff path to the Richterhöhe balustrade. The terrace looks straight at Hohensalzburg's south wall and stays open after the Museum der Moderne has shut.
Salzburg's weekday produce market runs Monday to Friday 07:00-19:00 and Saturday to 15:00 under the flank of the Kollegienkirche. Alpine cheese, Bauernbrot and Pinzgauer smoked ham build a picnic for around €8 per person.
A one-metre-wide hatch in a passage off Getreidegasse has sold the Salzburger Bosna since 1950 — two thin bratwurst, onion, parsley and a curry-paprika blend in a grilled white roll, for €4.90. Cash only, expect a short queue.
Every Thursday from 05:00 to 13:00 around 100 stalls fill Mirabellplatz — Austria's oldest weekly farmers' market. Outside market hours the Andräviertel around Wolf-Dietrich-Strasse is where the €10-14 lunch menus and Turkish bakeries are.
A monastery brewery since 1621, seating 1,400 in vaulted halls and a chestnut garden. You rinse your own stoneware mug at the well, pay at the till — around €4.30 for a half-litre Märzen — and carry it to the Schmankerlgang food stalls.
Bus 151 climbs 1,287 m from Mirabellplatz to the Gaisberg summit in about 35 minutes for a €3.60 single. From the ridge the Alpine chain runs from the Untersberg to the Dachstein, and paragliders launch off the east face all morning.
The grounds of Archbishop Markus Sittikus's 1615 pleasure palace are free and open until dusk: the Wasserspiele trick fountains are ticketed, but the alleys, the Steintheater and the Sound of Music gazebo are not. Bus 25 from Rathaus, €3.60.
A 20-minute walk from Hellbrunn along the Hellbrunner Allee reaches this reed-fringed pond, with the rococo Schloss Leopoldskron on the far shore and the Untersberg behind it. The lakeside path and the small free bathing meadow cost nothing.
Red Bull's glass-and-steel dome holds the Flying Bulls fleet — a B-25 Mitchell, a DC-6B, Formula 1 chassis — and admission is free, 09:00-22:00 daily. Bus 2 or 10 from the centre takes 20 minutes for €3.60.