The Salzburg Festival runs for about five weeks from late July, stages opera, drama and concerts across venues built into the rock of the Mönchsberg, and has done so almost every year since 1920. During it the old town is a different city: black tie in the streets at seven in the evening, every restaurant booked, and hotel rates at two or three times their ordinary level.
Outside those five weeks Salzburg is a compact baroque town of 155,000 people that you can cross on foot in twenty minutes.
The old town and the river
The Salzach divides the city and the split is simple.
The Altstadt, on the left bank, is the UNESCO baroque core: the cathedral, the Residenz, Getreidegasse with Mozart's birthplace, the festival halls and the fortress on the rock above. It is largely pedestrian and it is where you want to be.
The right bank, around Linzergasse and the Mirabell gardens, is the newer side, quieter and cheaper, with the best views back at the fortress. It is a five-minute walk across the bridge.
Outside the city, the Salzkammergut lake district begins twenty minutes east, and one of Austria's great hotels sits on a lake there.
The eight below are grouped that way.
The Altstadt
Inside the baroque core, on foot from the festival halls.
Hotel Sacher Salzburg occupies a 1866 building on the river with rooms facing the fortress, a bar that is the festival's unofficial meeting room and the cake that carries the family name. It is the address in Salzburg and it books out entirely for the festival.
Hotel Sacher Salzburg
Salzach riverfront · 5★ · $$$$
Fortress-facing rooms and the festival's meeting room
Check availabilityHotel Goldener Hirsch, A Luxury Collection Hotel, Salzburg sits on Getreidegasse in a building dating to 1407, converted with painted furniture and low doorways, twenty metres from Mozart's birthplace and beside the festival halls. It is the most historic hotel in the city.
Hotel Goldener Hirsch, A Luxury Collection Hotel, Salzburg
Getreidegasse · 5★ · $$$$
A 1407 building beside Mozart's birthplace
Check availabilityHotel Bristol Salzburg occupies a position on Herbert von Karajan Platz directly beside the festival halls, with a spa and rooms looking at the cliff face. It is the shortest walk to a performance of anything here.
Hotel Bristol Salzburg
Near Mirabell · 5★ · $$$
Nineteenth-century grand hotel facing the gardens
Check availabilityartHotel Blaue Gans sits in a converted building in the old town with a contemporary interior, a good restaurant and the most design-led rooms in the Altstadt.
artHotel Blaue Gans
Altstadt, by the festival halls · 4★ · $$$
Most design-led rooms inside the baroque core
Check availabilityAbove the town
Hotel Schloss Mönchstein occupies a nineteenth-century castle on the Mönchsberg reached by a private lift through the rock, with a small room count and the best view over Salzburg. It is a five-minute descent into the old town.
Hotel Schloss Mönchstein
Monchsberg · 5★ · $$$$
A castle reached by a lift cut through the rock
Check availabilityThe right bank and Mirabell
Across the river, quieter and better value, five minutes on foot from the centre.
Hotel Stein - Adults Only occupies a corner on the Staatsbrücke with a rooftop terrace that has the best view of the fortress and the old town in the city, and rooms that lean modern.
Hotel Stein - Adults Only
Staatsbrucke, right bank · 4★ · $$$
The best rooftop view of the fortress in the city
Check availabilityHotel Schloss Leopoldskron sits on the Leopoldskron pond south of the centre in an eighteenth-century rococo palace, with a hall of mirrors and grounds that appeared in a very famous film. It is a fifteen-minute walk or a short bus from the centre.
Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron
Leopoldskron pond · 4★ · $$$
A rococo palace with a hall of mirrors
Check availabilityThe Salzkammergut
Twenty minutes east, where the lakes begin.
Schloss Fuschl, a Rosewood Resort occupies a fifteenth-century hunting castle on the Fuschlsee with its own lake frontage, a spa and boats, recently reworked to a very high standard. It is twenty minutes from Salzburg and it is the best hotel in the region.
What we have left off
The pensions and guest houses across the right bank are excluded. They are the traditional and inexpensive way to stay in Salzburg, particularly during the festival when everything else is impossible, and they are guest houses rather than hotels.
What to do
Book the festival a long way out if you are coming for it, and check the dates deliberately if you are not.
Do the Hohensalzburg fortress, which is one of the largest intact medieval castles in Europe, reached by funicular. Go early.
The Mozart birthplace and residence are both worth an hour. The Residenz state rooms and the DomQuartier tour explain how a prince-archbishop lived.
Eat properly: Salzburger Nockerl, and a beer in the Augustiner Bräustübl, a monastery brewery where you collect your own stein and rinse it at a fountain.
Drive into the Salzkammergut for the lakes: Fuschl, Wolfgangsee and Hallstatt, which is beautiful and extremely busy in season.
Practical notes
Salzburg airport is fifteen minutes from the centre. Munich is 90 minutes by road or two hours by train and often the better route.
May, June and September are ideal. The festival takes late July and August. December has one of the better Christmas market seasons in Austria. Winter otherwise is cold and quiet, with skiing an hour away.
The old town is pedestrianised and small; nothing needs a car.
Explore 4 & 5 Star Salzburg Hotels
Questions people actually ask
When is the festival?
Roughly the last week of July through the end of August. Rates double or triple and rooms go a year ahead.
Left bank or right bank?
Left for the baroque core and the festival halls. Right for value, quiet and the best views back at the fortress. Five minutes apart.
Is Salzburg worth more than a day trip from Munich?
Two nights, comfortably, and more if you add the lakes.
How many nights?
Two in the city, three with the Salzkammergut.