Tag: Salzburg

One day in Salzburg

While on a recent city break to Munich (read about it here), we decided to take the train to Salzburg, Austria for the day. So how did we spend 1 day in Salzburg?

Getting there

Getting to Salzburg was really straight forward. We booked our tickets in advance and purchased a Bayern Ticket – a travel ticket that can be used on all regional transport including visits inside Bavaria but which also allows travel to the first stop across the border meaning it was valid to travel to Salzburg. The ticket can be purchased for individuals or groups and for 2 of us, worked out at just €32 or €16 return each!

Seats on the train couldn’t be reserved so we arrived at Munich Hauptbahnhof 30 minutes before departure to give us plenty of time to find our platform and get a seat on the train as soon as it arrived. The station was easy to navigate and we soon located the departures board and found our way to the platform to board the train. It took just under 2 hours to reach Salzburg station from Munich!

Sightseeing

From Salzburg Station, it was an easy, straightforward walk towards the city centre. It took about 15-20 minutes to reach Mirabellplatz, home of the famous Mirabell Palace and Gardens.

Mirabell Palace and Gardens

While it is possible to go inside the palace, we decided we probably wouldn’t have time with just a few hours in the city so instead we spent some time strolling around its beautiful gardens, famously featured in the film The Sound of Music. Unfortunately the weather was drizzly and the some of the paths were blocked by large puddles but the rain did nothing to dull the bright colours of the flower filled gardens.

From Mirabellplatz, we passed the small museum at Mozart’s former residence and crossed the pedestrian ‘Love Lock’ bridge from the new side of town to the old town.

  • Locks attached to the pedestrian bridge
  • Mozart’s Residence
Getreidgasse

The street running alongside the river was lined with touristy souvenir stores, pretzel-filled food counters and cafes so we took one of the narrow side roads off the street and found our way to Getreidgasse, a shopping street where ornate signs hang over the store doors. At the far end of the street, we stumbled across the Sound of Music store and museum from where you can take a location tour. Having never actually see the film, I didn’t do this but I have friends who are fans of the movie and have taken the tour and highly recommend it!

Mozart’s Birthplace

Further along Getreidgasse, you will also find Mozart’s Birthplace, now another museum about the composer.

As we wandered up and down the side streets in the old town, we stumbles across Universitatplatz where there was a small market with stalls selling, among other things, souvenirs that were a bit cheaper than in the stores we’d passed. There was also a food van selling giant pretzels in various sweet and savoury flavours – perfect for a lunchtime snack!!

Pretzel stand in Universitatplatz
Mozart statue in the centre of Mozartplatz

Not far from University Square is Residenezplatz, where we got our first glimpse of Salzburg Cathedral, and the adjoining Mozartplatz where a statue of the composer stands proudly in the centre. We followed the road leading around the cathedral, past a game of giant chess going on in Domplatz, to the cathedral entrance and went to have a quick look inside.

  • Salzburg Cathedral

Next to the Cathedral, was St Peter’s Abbey. We wandered through its grounds, the Petersfriedhof or St Peter’s Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in the city of Salzburg and which, along with the Abbey’s catacombes, also featured in The Sound of Music film.

St Peter’s Abbey and Cemetery
View of the fortress on the hill

Behind the abbey, was the terminus for the funicular railway which takes visitors up the steeps hill to Fortress Hohensalzburg. It is possible to hike u to the fortress but we decided against this and instead bought a value ticket which gave us a return trip on the funicular railway as well as entrance to all parts of the fortress and its museums.

The main reason for visiting the fortress has to be the stunning views over the city from the fort’s grounds. We took the audio tour of the salt rooms which took us up to one of the towers for a 360 degree view of the surrounding city and the mountains looming in the distance.

In one of the state rooms

The fortress museums did not take long to look around and in all honesty, our ticket upgrade giving us access to the state rooms probably wasn’t worth it as there really wasn’t a lot to see in the couple of rooms this allowed us into although there did seem to be a few sections of the fortress closed off for renovations on the day we visited.

As we left the fortress, the drizzle turned to a full on downpour. We abandoned our plan to walk down the hill back into the city and instead made use of our return ticket to ride the funicular down. Hoping it would be a passing shower, we made our way back to Mozartplatz and went for tea and a slice of traditional Sacher Torte chocolate cake at Glockenspiel Cafe. Being in a touristy area, the refreshments were a bit pricier than usual but the cake was so light and absolutely delicious!

A slice of Sacher Torte!

With the rain not abating, we walked back to Getreidgasse and spent some time shopping to keep dry before it was time to walk back to the station for our evening train back to Munich. While we could easily have filled another day or so in Salzburg taking a walking tour, visiting the palace and its many museums or, in better weather, taking a riverside walk or a river cruise, a day had been long enough to see the main sights and get a flavour of the pretty city. And it’s definitely a city I’d like to return to someday.

Read about my Munich city break.

Upcoming trip to Munich

So although a lot of my posts will be about trips I’ve been on over the last few years, there’s rarely a time that goes by when I’m not busily planning a new adventure. In fact, I’m currently planning 4! The first of which is a 4 night break in Munich, Germany!

One of the few photos I have from my previous trip to Munich!

I’m a huge pop music fan, especially late 90s/early 00s pop music. And I like going to concerts. A lot. So when I can tie in my passion for music with my passion for travel, I’m a very happy bunny! Just last week, I was in Sheffield on a city break during which I saw Take That in concert and at the end of 2017, I toured the UK seeing my favourite pop band, Steps, all over the country. But this year, I’m extra lucky as my favourite boyband, Backstreet Boys, are touring. Being an international band means the opportunity to see them outside of the UK. Over the years I have not only travelled throughout the UK and been to various cities in Europe to see them but tied in holidays to the USA and Australia with their concert dates just to make my trips that bit more exciting.

So this year, I’m going to a *few* shows, the first of which will be Munich in late May. I’ve been to Munich once before, funnily enough also to see Backstreet Boys in concert, but it was sandwiched in the middle of a 3 night trip also including Stuttgart and Leipzig so we spent less than 24 hours there and had very little time to sight-see. This time, I want to come away feeling like I actually got to know the city.

One of the few bits of Munich I saw on my last trip!

We’re flying hand-luggage only with a budget airline and staying in a budget hotel near the Hautbahnhof. Both were booked through expedia to get loyalty points to spend against future trips as well as through cashback site Quidco to reduce our costs. Our hotel rate includes breakfast and we’re hoping it’s the kind where we can sneak out a bread roll and a bit of cheese or ham to make our lunchtime sandwich too! Food-wise, Germany does slightly concern me – I don’t like German sausage, sauerkraut or apple strudel, my tastes in general are very plain. So we’ll probably end up looking for pizza or burgers rather than trying anything traditional!

We have a segway tour of the city planned for our first day. Segways are something I’d never considered in the past – in fact I thought the idea a bit of a waste thinking you’d be too busy whizzing around to actually see anything or take photos of anything – but since deciding to give it a go a few years ago, I’ve been hooked and we thought it would be a fun way of finding a bit out about the city and getting our bearings. Hopefully we’ll see some things we want to return to and spend more time at over the rest of our trip.

Rather than spending the entire time in Munich city itself, we also have some trips out planned, the first of which is a visit to the ‘Disney’ castle. We’ve booked this as an organised coach trip as getting there by public transport using trains and buses sounded a bit too complicated. This way, we’ll be picked up, taken by coach to the castle, given time to look around, taken to a second castle, given time to look around that one and then be driven back to Munich. At least that’s what the itinerary on the company website tells us. Hopefully it’ll run to plan just like that!

Not only will we not be spending our entire trip in Munich but on one of the days we’re planning on leaving Germany completely for a day trip to Salzburg, Austria. We thought long and hard about doing this as an organised trip vs using public transport and eventually decided to go it alone. We’ve pre-booked special tourist tickets – which were a lot cheaper than we expected them to be – which get us to and from Salzburg station, giving us about 8 hours there which will hopefully be enough to see a few of the main sights. We’re still in the early stages of planning this day and may look up a suggested walking route/one day itinerary to follow.

If you’ve visited Munich – or Salzburg – and have any tips, suggestions, must-sees etc then please let me know in the comments below!