Salzburg Vacation: Planning Advice

Have a look at Salzburg from a distance before making definite plans.

If you ask for advice for a Salzburg vacation at any member of the Salzburg tourism mafia, you will be told the following: Salzburg is perfect for sightseeing, hiking, skiing and absolutely everything else - old people will spend the happiest vacation of their life as much as families with children or youngsters. This is of course nothing but a big pile of propaganda. No place in the world will serve to all vacation preferences. Every season has its specialities - we put together the highlights for each months in a separate article, including weather information.


Salzburg: Things to do in...

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December


Salzburg province is certainly a diverse corner of Austria in terms of landscape and tourism opportunities, but even there you need to plan your vacation ahead to choose the area where you want to stay carefully. In this article, we try to point out the highlights that Salzburg has to offer for enhancing your vacation - in a way, the city′s and region′s "unique selling propositions".

Vacations in the City of Salzburg

Salzburg City sightseeing vacation: The most popular place in the province is the capital. It is a year-round travel destination with peak seasons of June, July and August (especially during the Salzburg Festival) and from mid-November to Christmas as well as New Year′s Eve. Salzburg is famous for mainly four things: It′s Medieval and Baroque architecture in the Old Town (a UNESCO cultural heritage site) and general prettiness; as a birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; for the Salzburg Festival and music offerings; and for the movie "The Sound of Music".

In the following, you find links to articles on suggested itineraries for vacations in Salzburg at varying length:

Salzburg "Holiday": Salzburg in a Few Hours (or a Day)
Salzburg Itinerary for 2 to 3 Days: The "Standard" Itinerary
Salzburg & Surroundings: Things to do in a Week

Tourism infrastructure caters to all these things. Salzburg is suitable for sightseeing vacations and for combined vacations of sightseeing and moderate hiking or quick and easy skiing on a day-trip basis. Note that for the latter two, the mountainous regions are more suitable, for hiking also the Salzkammergut. This brings us to the surrounding province of Salzburgerland, especially the rural south.

Vacations in the Province of Salzburg

Southern Province, summer vacation: The regions of Pinzgau, Pongau and Lungau are great for hiking vacations; you get there rather easily from Salzburg airport. All three areas are also popular skiing regions during the winter, which means that the often very large hotels tend to have over-capacities during the summer season - watch out for bargains! Particularly nice are the villages in the National Park Hohe Tauern. Note also the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße, the pictures town of Zell am See and the Gasteinertal with its thermal springs. The latter one is also great for spa vacations.

Southern Province, winter vacation: Skiing, skiing and more skiing is what you can expect here. An overview on the best regions can be found in the article on skiing areas of Salzburg. Note also that there is a bus shuttle between Salzburg city and skiing regions, called "Snow Shuttle". If you don′t book a package vacation, note that regions like Obertauern, Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang, Ski Amade or Zell am See / Kaprun often have their own pick-up services at Salzburg airport.

Salzburg vacations for "age & interest groups": Families who are up for outdoor vacations will be fine pretty much everywhere; for sightseeing in the city, note our article on "Salzburg for Kids"; family-friendly skiing areas can be found in the Tennengau and northern Pongau regions. Elderly people should look into the spas of Salzburg, but generally, they are the lucky ones in terms of vacation: Especially the city will cater primarily to affluent, culturally interested, elderly clientele. Young people, on the other hand, might want to go for the rowdier ski resorts such as Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Leogang or Obertauern for outdoor activities both in winter and summer. They might find the city a tad expensive for backpacking type of tourists.

Links

Things not to do in Salzburg

http://www.salzburg.info/
Official Vacation Website of the city of Salzburg

http://www.salzburgerland.com/eng/
Official Vacation Website of the Province of Salzburg

 

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