We weren’t content with only seeing Vienna whilst in Austria, so we got on a train and took the beautiful journey through the mountainous landscape to Salzburg. I’m just going to say it now, I loved it. It was my favourite place from the whole of our interrailing trip, in terms of the landscape and beauty of the place itself.
We stayed at the YOHO International Youth Hostel. It is easy to find your way there from the train station; it’s about a ten minute walk from there. From the hostel itself, it is very easy to get to the centre of Salzburg, and it is only around a five minute walk to the ‘Do re mi’ steps from the ‘Sound of Music’, at the Mirabell Palace.
We began our first day by heading to the ‘Do re mi’ steps. Now, I haven’t actually seen the whole of the ‘Sound of Music’, but our hostel played the film every night at 8pm for those who want to watch it. On our first night in Salzburg we decided to watch the film so we could recognises places from it whilst visiting them the next day. However, the film kept sticking so we only watched about an hour before giving up. We did see the song ‘Do re mi’ though, so we were still able to recognise the location at the Mirabell Palace when visiting it.
The palace grounds are beautiful. You can walk through the palace grounds to get to the Salzburg Bridge, where you can cross over to see the main attractions like the Fortress, Mozart’s birthplace, etc, but more on that in a bit!
We crossed the Salzburg Bridge over the Salzach River. The bridge is covered with lots of padlocks, put there by friends and lovers alike. Padlocks on bridges seems to be a current trend, and it makes for an interesting walk across the bridge.
Once over the bridge, we headed to Mozart’s birthplace. At the birthplace, there is a museum that you can pay to go in, but we didn’t do this as we had a lot of things we wanted to do in Salzburg, and neither of us are particularly big fans of Mozart, so this wasn’t a priority for us! We were content with just visiting and seeing his place of birth.
After this, we began the steep walk up to the Salzburg Fortress; Hohensalzburg Fortress. To gain entry, you have to purchase a ticket. You can get either a basic (€12) or standard (€15.20) ticket. We got the standard ticket as you get entry into a couple more areas of the fortress. Let me just say, the views from the fortress itself are amazing. You can see out to the Alps, and can even have something to eat in a cafe that overlooks this view – which we did!
Walking around the fortress, there is a spectacular view from every angle. With both the basic and standard ticket, you get an audio guide to do a self guided tour of the salt storeroom, torture chamber, look-out tower, ‘Salzburg Bull’ – mechanical organ. From the look-out tour you can see over Salzburg in every direction.
The grounds of the fortress are just as beautiful as the views looking out from it…
From the fortress, we walked back down into the centre of Salzburg. Pretty much everything is in walking distance in Salzburg. We were only there for one full day so we fit everything we wanted to do into that one day and had plenty of time to do it all and walk from one place to the next – granted we got up and left the hostel early to manage it! Walking around Salzburg is a pleasure in itself, it’s so pretty and there’s lots to look at and photograph…
We went to the St Peter’s Abbey, cemetery and catacombs. The abbey is the most beautiful church that I’ve been in. I’m not a religious person, but the architecture inside churches and cathedrals is always stunning and so I enjoy admiring that.
St Peter’s Cemetery…
The Catacombs…
We also had a look in the Salzburg cathedral. You could go down into the crypt and there was an art project set up; ‘Vanitas’ by Christian Boltansky.
Last up for the day was the Monchsberg Lift. This is a lift that you take up to a viewing platform and you can look out over Salzburg. Again, the views were something to behold..
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The next day we were catching our train to our next location in the early afternoon, so for the morning we had a walk around Salzburg, visiting St Sebastian’s cemetery, revisiting St Peter’s Abbey (because it was so beautiful) and generally just enjoying being in Salzburg for the last few hours.
Both Salzburg and Vienna were some of my favourite cities in Europe, and I can’t wait to explore more of Austria when I get the chance!
Next stop…Ljubljana!
Introducing Georgia 