Vienna and Salzburg, Austria City Guides
In June 2017, my husband and I embarked on a three-week long backpacking trip of western Europe. In my first post of this series, I go through all the details about preparing for this trip from itinerary, budget, packing, riding the train, lodging, and other common questions I’m asked. Now, I’ll take you through a detailed “City Guide” of every city we visited, and my top recommendations of where to eat and drink, where to stay, and what to see in this Vienna and Salzburg, Austria City Guide.
Before I dive into the details about what we saw and did in Vienna and Salzburg, a little background on the travel style Curtis and I enjoy. Our favorite way to travel is to get immersed in local culture. We like to eat unique foods and people-watch. On the flip side, we don’t like to do much in the way of touring — I can’t stand waiting in line or crowded attractions. We also like to be outdoors, so one of our favorite things to do is just stroll along the city and see the sights. Our travel style is low-key, affordable, and cultural. So you’ll find a lot of these types of travel recommendations in our city guides. If that’s the type of travel you like, too, read on!
A Few Hours in Vienna, Austria City Guide
If you remember from my overview post about backpacking Western Europe, Curtis and I booked each leg of this trip about 24 hours in advance. That gave us a great deal of flexibility if we needed to change our travel plans last minute.
For example, when we were headed to Vienna and realized that because of the Vienna Pride and Rainbow Parade (one of the largest in Europe) accommodations were pretty well booked up, and definitely outside of our price range! We pivoted our plans and spent the day in Vienna, then pushed on to Salzburg for the overnight.
So if you have just a few hours to spend in Vienna, here are the highlights:
- St. Stephens Cathedral
- the Hofburg Palace
- the Mozart monument at the entrance at the Ringstraße of the Burggarten
- have a Wiener Schnitzel!
The Hofburg Palace was incredibly impressive. Even though we only had a few hours, it was well worth a visit.
Vienna and Salzburg, Austria are both quite proud of Mozart!
Viennese schnitzel is a thin, breaded meat cutlet made from veal, chicken or pork. We got ours from a very affordable food truck near the palace. Iowans, you definitely need to try schnitzel to compare to our beloved pork tenderloin…
A Few Hours in Salzburg, Austria City Guide
And so we pushed on to Salzburg! Salzburg is just an hour and a half from Munich, Germany — our next stop — and it just made sense to go here next. To us, Salzburg felt like the type of place Europeans would go for a relaxing vacation. Like Vail or Lake Tahoe in the United States, Salzburg has lots of luxurious dining, shopping, and beautiful sights.
Our first stop was to the Mirabell Palace and Gardens. These palace grounds and garden were established in the 1600s. They’re one of the most popular sights to see in Salzburg because the gardens are where Maria and the Von Trapp children sing Do-Re-Me in the Sound of Music!
Living it up in the Mirabell Gardens — the Sound of Music is one of my favorite childhood movies!
The stunning view from the bridge crossing the Salzach River.
Every weekend in the summer there is an open-air farmers market on the Salzach River called Salzachgalerien. We spent a few hours strolling the riverfront as the sunset. Check out the view of the Hohensalzburg Castle in the distance!
In preparation for our trip to Munich, Germany, we spent the evening enjoying a classic beer garden at Augustiner Braustubl! Traditional beer gardens are one of the coolest experiences found in Austria and Germany, in my opinion. Usually, a traditional beer garden is located in a shady grove. Visitors rent a ceramic stein, and self-cater their own fresh beer. You can bring your own food, or eat sausages, french fries, or any of the other simple, portable foods being offered that night. Beer gardens are the gathering spot of the community!
For more general tips about backpacking western Europe, head back over to the travel section of my blog. For more City Guides, including what we did in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia — press on! -Emily
