Austria outside Vienna is mountain country — the Alps cover 62% of the country and the landscapes they produce are among the most dramatic in Europe. Salzburg gave the world Mozart and The Sound of Music and has been leveraging both ever since, but it is also a genuinely beautiful baroque city. The Salzkammergut lake district has the villages that defined the European idea of Alpine scenery. Innsbruck sits at the bottom of mountains so close that you can ski back into the city centre. And the Wachau Valley between Melk and Krems is the most beautiful section of the Danube.
1. Salzburg — Mozart, Baroque, and Mountains
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Salzburg’s old town is a UNESCO World Heritage baroque city of exceptional completeness — the Cathedral, the Residenz, the Getreidegasse with its iron guild signs, and the Hohensalzburg fortress on the rock above all date from the 17th and 18th centuries and form a coherent ensemble. Mozart was born at Getreidegasse 9; the birthplace museum is genuinely informative. The Salzburg Festival in July and August is one of the great classical music events in the world — tickets sell out a year in advance. The Sound of Music tour, whatever you think of it, visits genuinely beautiful locations in the surrounding Salzkammergut.
2. Hallstatt
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Hallstatt is the most photographed village in Austria — possibly in Europe. The lakeside setting, the stacked wooden houses, the salt mine above the village that was operating 7,000 years ago, and the charnel house with its painted skulls in the church ossuary make it one of the strangest and most beautiful places in the Alps. Stay overnight to experience it without the day-tripper crowds. The Hallstatt salt mine tour is the oldest show mine in the world and includes a wooden slide used by miners for centuries.
3. Innsbruck
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Innsbruck is the only city in the world where you can ski back into the city centre — the Nordkette mountain rises directly behind the old town and the cable car from the city reaches skiing at 2,334 metres. The old town — the Altstadt — is compact and handsome, with the Golden Roof (Goldenes Dachl), a late Gothic oriel window covered in 2,738 fire-gilded copper tiles built for Emperor Maximilian I in 1500, as its centrepiece. The Tyrolean Folk Art Museum has the best collection of Alpine rural culture in Austria. The city hosted the Winter Olympics twice — 1964 and 1976 — and the infrastructure remains.
4. The Wachau Valley
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The Wachau is a 36-kilometre stretch of the Danube between Melk and Krems in Lower Austria — a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of vineyards, apricot orchards, medieval towns, and castle ruins on every second hillside. The Melk Abbey, a baroque Benedictine monastery on a rock above the river, is one of the finest baroque buildings in Europe. The cycle path along the Danube connects Melk to Krems in a day and passes through the wine villages of Dürnstein, Weissenkirchen, and Spitz. A boat between Melk and Krems runs in summer and takes three hours downstream.
5. Skiing in the Austrian Alps
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Austria has more ski resorts than any other country in Europe. St Anton am Arlberg is the most serious — the birthplace of modern Alpine skiing, with terrain that rewards advanced skiers and an après-ski culture that runs until the early hours. Kitzbühel hosts the Hahnenkamm downhill race every January — the most prestigious in the world — and has a beautiful medieval town alongside the slopes. Lech and Zürs are the most exclusive. Ischgl combines excellent skiing with a music festival tradition that has brought major acts to the mountain since the 1990s. Most resorts are accessible by train from Innsbruck or Salzburg.
Practical Information
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The Austrian rail network (ÖBB) is excellent and connects Vienna to Salzburg (2.5 hours), Innsbruck (4 hours), and Graz (2.5 hours). The Westbahn private rail service offers cheaper fares on the Vienna-Salzburg route. The Salzkammergut lakes are best explored by car or bicycle — public transport connections between the smaller lake villages are limited. Austria uses the euro. The best months are June through September for mountains and lakes, December through March for skiing. Vienna’s Christmas markets in December are among the best in Europe.
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Official sources
Check current conditions with Austria Tourism before you travel.
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