Salzburg 7-Day Itinerary: Old Town, Alps & Lakes

How should you spend 7 days in Salzburg?

Spend three days in the city (the Old Town, the fortress and Mönchsberg, then the right bank), one on Hellbrunn and the Untersberg, and three on day trips: Hallstatt, Berchtesgaden, and the Eisriesenwelt ice cave or the Wolfgangsee. Between November and spring several outdoor sights close, so use the winter swaps below.

A week lets you treat Salzburg as a base rather than a checklist. The city days cluster sights by area so you walk between them, and each day trip uses one line of public transport. If you sleep in the Province of Salzburg, the Guest Mobility Ticket covers buses and trains across the province for your whole stay, which changes the maths on every trip out.

Opening times and prices here were checked on operators’ own sites on 16 October 2026. For a shorter break, see the Salzburg 3-day itinerary; for bases, where to stay in Salzburg.

When do sights close, and which events should shape your week?

Plan around two calendars. Outdoor sights run from spring to 1 November: in 2026 Hellbrunn opened on 28 March, the Schafbergbahn on 25 April and the Eisriesenwelt in early May. Events add demand: Mozart Week (21–31 January 2027), the Easter Festival (20–29 March), Whitsun (14–17 May) and the Summer Festival (16 July–29 August 2027).

Season dates come from Hellbrunn, the Schafbergbahn, the Eisriesenwelt and the Eagle’s Nest, which stays open until 8 November 2026. Winter also brings maintenance: the Untersbergbahn closes from 2 November to, provisionally, 13 December 2026, and the fortress funicular has works from 9 to 13 November 2026, when the fortress museums close too, and from 11 January to 14 March 2027, when you walk up instead.

For events, the Salzburg Festival lists Whitsun 2027 on 14–17 May and summer 2027 from 16 July to 29 August; the Easter Festival runs 20–29 March 2027; and Mozart Week 2027 runs 21–31 January. The Christmas market fills Domplatz and Residenzplatz from 19 November 2026 to 1 January 2027. Book rooms and tickets early if your dates overlap.

What should you do on day 1 in the Old Town?

Start at Mozart’s Birthplace on Getreidegasse when it opens at 9am, then walk the lane to the cathedral squares and spend the afternoon in the DomQuartier, the prince-archbishops’ state rooms and museums. Avoid Tuesdays outside July, August and the Christmas period, when the DomQuartier is closed.

Mozart’s Birthplace at Getreidegasse 9 is where Wolfgang Amadé Mozart was born on 27 January 1756; the family lived there for 26 years. It opens daily from 9am to 5:30pm, with last entry 30 minutes before closing, and costs €18, or €25 with the Mozart Residence on a combined ticket valid for 48 hours. The foundation says online tickets are valid only from its official webshop and that third-party tickets are not accepted; the Salzburg Card is accepted. The house is not step-free.

The DomQuartier opens daily except Tuesday from 10am to 5pm, daily until 6pm in July and August, and daily from December to 6 January; last entry is an hour before closing. Full access costs €15. The Residenzgalerie is closed until autumn 2027, with reduced prices meanwhile, and the cathedral arcade terrace is reached through the Cathedral Museum.

Salzburg has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996, Tourismus Salzburg notes, so the walk between these stops is the sight in itself. In late November and December, the Christmas market on Domplatz and Residenzplatz turns the afternoon into an evening.

How do you spend day 2 at the fortress and on the Mönchsberg?

Ride the FestungsBahn funicular to Hohensalzburg Fortress early, then follow the Mönchsberg ridge to the Museum der Moderne and take the Mönchsberg lift down. Avoid Mondays for the museum, and check funicular works in November and from January to mid-March, when you walk up to the fortress instead.

The fortress is open every day: 9:30am to 5pm from January to April and October to December, and 8:30am to 8pm from May to September, when the museums and state rooms run 9am to 7pm. The FestungsBahn, Austria’s oldest funicular still running, has carried visitors since 1892 from Festungsgasse 4 in 54 seconds, every 10 minutes. Tickets cost €19.20 for the all-inclusive ticket with funicular and €15.50 for the basic ticket with funicular, or €14.50 and €12 if you walk up.

From 9 to 13 November 2026 the funicular is under maintenance and the fortress museums close, leaving only the path and outdoor areas open; from 11 January to 14 March 2027 the funicular closes again but the museums stay open, and no online tickets are sold in either period, the fortress says.

The Museum der Moderne on the Mönchsberg opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm, to 8pm on Thursdays, and closes on Mondays except holidays and festival periods; admission is €15, or €17 with the MönchsbergAufzug lift, which rises 60 metres in about 30 seconds. For the evening, Tourismus Salzburg lists Augustiner Bräu – Kloster Mülln among the city’s beer gardens.

What should you see on day 3 on the right bank?

Cross the Salzach to Mirabell Gardens in the morning, then visit the Mozart Residence on Makartplatz. In the afternoon, walk Linzergasse from the Platzl, with the Kapuzinerberg rising beside it, and spend the evening around the Steingasse, one of the three areas Tourismus Salzburg names as the city’s nightlife centres.

Mirabell Garden was reshaped around 1690 to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Tourismus Salzburg explains; look for the Pegasus fountain, the hedge theatre, one of the oldest north of the Alps, and Europe’s oldest dwarf garden. The garden was a principal location in The Sound of Music, where Maria and the children sing “Do-Re-Mi” around the Pegasus fountain. Inside the palace, the Marmorsaal, where Leopold Mozart and his children performed, now hosts weddings and concerts.

The Mozart Residence at Makartplatz 8 is open daily from 9am to 5:30pm, and a visit takes about an hour; it is on the €25 combined ticket with the Birthplace. On 21 January 2027, the opening day of Mozart Week, it closes from 3pm.

Linzergasse runs from the Platzl by the Staatsbrücke, parallel to the Kapuzinerberg, out towards Schallmoos; Paracelsus lived at number 3 in 1540–41. After dark, Tourismus Salzburg names the Steingasse as one of three nightlife centres, alongside the Rudolfskai and the area around Anton-Neumayr-Platz and the Gstättengasse.

How do you combine Hellbrunn and the Untersberg on day 4?

Take bus 25 from the city centre to Hellbrunn Palace for the trick fountains, about 25 minutes away, then stay on the same line to the Untersbergbahn, which climbs to 1,776 metres in eight minutes. Hellbrunn’s 2026 season ends on 1 November, and the cable car then closes for maintenance until mid-December.

Hellbrunn opened daily from 28 March to 1 November 2026, from 9:30am to 5:30pm in October (last entry 4:30pm) and later in summer. The €16.50 adult ticket covers the trick fountains with an audio guide, about 50 minutes, the palace exhibition and the folk museum in the Monatsschlössl. Bus 25 runs from the main station or the Rathaus stop in about 25 minutes from the centre; you can also walk or cycle the Hellbrunner Allee from Nonntal.

The Untersbergbahn reaches 1,776 metres in eight minutes, with departures on the hour and half-hour, and bus 25 continues there via Hellbrunn, Anif and Grödig, the operator says. Its autumn maintenance runs from 2 November to, provisionally, 13 December 2026. Check the summit forecast first; the view over Salzburg and the Berchtesgadener Land is the point.

In winter, when both are shut, swap this day for the Christmas market and Ice Magic on Mozartplatz, which runs from 12 November 2026 to 31 January 2027, or a concert in the Marmorsaal at Mirabell.

How do you plan the day trip to Hallstatt?

Go early and by public transport. Hallstatt’s railway station sits across the lake from the village, and a ferry meets the trains. In the village, the Salzwelten salt mine runs tours from 9:30am, with the last tour at 3pm from 2 November 2026. Budget a full day and an ÖBB ticket for the stretch outside the Salzburg province.

Hallstatt is part of the Hallstatt-Dachstein/Salzkammergut UNESCO World Heritage region, listed in 1997, and the regional tourist board says it is very popular, so travel by train or very early in the day to avoid traffic and full car parks. By rail, the Salzkammergut railway runs from Attnang-Puchheim on the Westbahn; at Hallstatt station, on the opposite shore, a ferry leaves to match train arrivals and departures and lands a stone’s throw from the market square.

Two cautions for autumn 2026. Rail replacement buses run on line 170 between Attnang-Puchheim and Bad Ischl from 10 October to 2 November 2026, the Salzkammergut tourist board says, with limited ticket sales on board. And the Guest Mobility Ticket covers only the Province of Salzburg, while the Salzkammergut stretches into Upper Austria and Styria, so buy an ÖBB ticket for the rest of the journey.

The Salzwelten Hallstatt salt mine, reached by funicular, runs tours from 9:30am, with the last tour starting at 4:30pm until 1 November 2026 and at 3pm from 2 November to 6 January 2027; it closes on 24 and 31 December. It has no visitor parking of its own, and the operator recommends public transport.

How do you reach Berchtesgaden, the Königssee and the Eagle’s Nest?

Take bus 840 from Salzburg via Marktschellenberg to Berchtesgaden and on to the Königssee. For the Eagle’s Nest, change in Berchtesgaden to bus 838 for the Kehlstein bus stop, then ride the dedicated mountain bus up. The Eagle’s Nest is open until 8 November 2026; outside the season, keep to Berchtesgaden and the lake.

Berchtesgaden’s bus page lists line 840 as Jennerbahn – Königssee – Unterstein – ZOB Berchtesgaden – Marktschellenberg – Salzburg, and line 838 as Berchtesgaden – Dokumentation (Kehlstein bus stop) – Buchenhöhe. Berchtesgaden is in Bavaria, Germany, so the Salzburg Guest Mobility Ticket will not cover the whole trip; check fares before you board.

The Eagle’s Nest stood as a symbol of the Nazi regime’s power, and its own site describes it as a reminder of the plans for war and mass murder made on the Obersalzberg. The 6.5 km Kehlstein road has been closed to public traffic since 1952; you reach the top by the RVO bus from the Hintereck car park or on a two-to-three-hour hike. Berchtesgaden’s tourism office says it is open until 8 November 2026, with weather-related changes possible, and recommends booking tickets online.

If the Eagle’s Nest is closed or clouded in, spend the day at the Königssee end of line 840 and in Berchtesgaden’s centre. If you are continuing into Bavaria, our Munich 3-day itinerary picks up from here.

Should day 7 be the Eisriesenwelt or the Wolfgangsee?

Choose the Eisriesenwelt at Werfen, which its operator calls the world’s largest ice cave, open daily from early May to 1 November, or the Wolfgangsee for lakes and the Schafbergbahn, Austria’s steepest cog railway, which ran until 1 November in 2026. Werfen is in the Salzburg province, so the Guest Mobility Ticket covers the train.

The Eisriesenwelt is open daily from early May to 1 November: the visitor centre ticket office runs from 8:30am to 3pm, the cable car from 8:45am to 3:20pm and guided cave tours from 9:30am to 3:45pm. Allow about three hours from the car park and back, bring warm clothes because the cave is usually below 0°C even in summer, and book online to avoid waits. Its many steps mean it is not fully accessible.

For the lakes, the Salzkammergut tourist board puts Fuschlsee about 40 minutes from Salzburg on bus 150 and Strobl about an hour, with St Wolfgang reached in 1 hour 30 to 1 hour 40 minutes by changing at Strobl to bus 546. The Schafbergbahn, running since 1893, takes about 35 minutes to just below the 1,783-metre summit and ran daily from 25 April to 1 November 2026.

In winter, when both close, spend the last day on whatever you skipped: the fortress at opening time, the Christmas markets or a concert. Guided tours can bundle day trips with transport if you would rather not juggle timetables.

Which passes, transport and safety rules matter for a week in Salzburg?

If you stay overnight in the province, the Guest Mobility Ticket gives free public transport for your whole stay, funded by a mobility fee of €0.50 per person per night, rising to €1.10 from 1 May 2027. Add a Salzburg Card only for museum-heavy days, validate tickets where required, and note the Old Town’s new car restrictions.

Tourismus Salzburg says the Guest Mobility Ticket arrives at check-in as a PDF or wallet pass and covers urban buses, regional buses, the S-Bahn and regional and long-distance trains within the province. The Salzburg Card costs €35, €41 or €44 for 24, 48 or 72 hours from November to March and €38, €45 or €49 from April to October 2026, with one free entry to each city attraction and museum; it pays off on days 1 and 2, less so on day trips.

From the airport, bus 2 runs to the main station every 15 to 20 minutes in about 23 minutes, and bus 10 reaches the city centre in about 15 minutes, Monday to Saturday, Salzburg Airport says. Drivers should know that from 1 July 2026 the Old Town is only accessible by car in exceptional cases, Tourismus Salzburg notes; Park & Ride is the recommended alternative.

The FCDO says crime in Austria is generally low but pickpocketing is higher in big city centres and main stations, that you must validate public transport tickets where required or risk an on-the-spot fine of €100 to €500, and that insurance for mountain activities should include rescue and helicopter costs.

• Is seven days too long? No; three city days plus three day trips leave one flexible day for weather.
• Do I need a car? No; buses and trains reach every stop, and the Old Town is now largely closed to cars.
• Best day trip in winter? Hallstatt, with the salt mine open into January; the Eisriesenwelt and Schafbergbahn are closed.
• Can I visit Salzburg from Munich instead? See is a Salzburg day trip worth it.
• What else is there? See things to do in Salzburg and best time to visit Salzburg.