The Salzburg Card: Can you really do it all in 24 hours?

Every big city here in Europe seems to have its own “see-it-all” card, and Salzburg is certainly not out of the loop on having one. We were a little skeptical about the card, primarily because Rick Steves dubbed it “too expensive”. Our opinion—Rick couldn’t be more wrong…and that’s coming from two extremist bargain hunters.  For a 24-hour card, it’s 26 Euros for Adults and 13.50 for Kids. You have exactly 24 hours to use the card (from the time you enter you activate the card by using it) but it gets you into nearly everything you can think of doing in Salzburg. What makes it a good deal is you only have to do two things to get your moneys’ worth out of the card.

So, instead of “Is it worth it?” the question becomes, “Can we do it all in 24 hours?” The simple answer is, No. There’s far too much to do. But if the question is “Can we do all of the stuff that counts in 24 hours,” then the answer is “Most definitely,” but if you want the real experience, you should probably have 2 days in Salzburg, using the Salzburg Card for 1 of those two. Here’s how we did it:

Day 1: Walk around the city, seeing the free sites. The Cathedral is a must-see visit, especially if you have a chance to see it on Sunday morning at 10 AM. I may not be Catholic, but the music reverberating through the cathedral is heavenly. You also get traditional Austrian culture on display. There are a lot of Sound of Music places to visit that are free within walking distance of the town center, including the Mirabell Gardens (Do-Re-Mi), the St. Peters’ Cemetery (the Escape Scene), and a few scenes during the “I Have Confidence in Me” Song. You can also see the Liesl-Rolf Gazeebo outside of the Hellbrunn Palace for free, but that’s a 20 minute bus trip away (Bus #25).

  

Day 2: After you’ve gotten the lay of the land, you can dedicate Day 2 to using the Salzburg Card. Here’s a general schedule:

10:00 AM: Buy Card. Unless you can get it at your hotel (we couldn’t), you have to get one at the Tourist Information office right down the first street of the historic old town. It’s a few doors down from the Mozart Birthplace.

 

10:15 AM: Tour the Mozart Birthplace. Rick Steves recommends skipping it in favor of the Residence House, but we liked it. It’s short and features quite a few unique Mozart items, including scores of music, pianos, and even a lock of his hair. It’s a short visit with kids, about 20-30 minutes.

11:00 AM: Pick up tickets for the Salzach River Boat Tour. The first tour of the day is at noon, and we recommend doing just that. While you’re waiting for the tour, walk across the lock bridge to the Mozart Residence. The attendant will tell you it’s an hour+ experience, but with kids, it’s only about 30-40 minutes. There are only a handful of rooms, and you’ll find yourself skipping through some of the audio content they give you.

11:55 AM: Line-up for the Boat Tour. It’s a 40-minute tour, and well worth it. If you hit it at the Summer season, the skippers do a boat dance where they spin the boat in circles to a waltz. Our kids loved it.

1:00 PM: Get lunch. Because you have to eat too. For bargain hunters, there’s a grocery store across the street from the boat tour and a few doors down from the Burger King, (I know, a sacrilege in and of itself). You can pick up sandwiches and plenty of other goodies for half the price of the food at the cafes and the squares only a street over. If you want the experience, do what we did: Get your lunch and sit on the steps of the Cathedral in Domplatz.

2:00 PM: Catch the #25 Bus to Hellbrunn Palace. You can catch the bus at the Rauthaus stop only a few paces down from the Grocery store. Once you get to Hellbrunn (you can’t miss it), sign up for the…

2:30 PM: Hellbrunn Palace Tour. It’s about 45 minutes, and well worth every minute of it. The Palace was designed to be a Fun House for the melancholic 400 years ago. You’ll probably have heard of the trick fountains, but it’s much more than that. With so many satirical and quirky grottos, statues, and mechanical devices, it’s quite the diversion from the normal “serious” history tours. Definitely worth it. Once your tour is over, check out the inside of the palace. From there, you’re steps away from the…

4:00 PM: Zoo. This was the only part of our trip that we probably could have skipped. The Zoo was a little too under-construction for us, and we spent all of 15 minutes walking up the hill before we exited and waited at the bus stop for #25 to take us back to town. In the end, we decided it would’ve been better to go see the Liesl and Rolf Sound of Music pavilion on the outside corner of the Palace.

5:00 PM: Get Dinner. Salzburg is dead by 6pm (we learned this the hard way on Day 1), so it’s best to get food before everything closes up. We opted for some inexpensive ginormous pretzels next to the cathedral for 2 Euro each. Really, most of the food in Salzburg was very reasonably priced.

6:00 PM: Catch the funicular to the Fortress to make it in time for the…

6:20 PM: Last tour of the day for the Hohensalzburg Fortress. This is a fairly easy audio tour, but worth a trip because it takes you to the top of the fortress where you get an awe-inspiring view of all of Salzburg. The whole thing closes at 7pm, but they tell you that you can stay up as long as you’d like, or at least until the last funicular which is at 9 (otherwise you’re walking down, which isn’t all that bad, actually). Either way, you get the whole area around the fortress pretty much to yourself. Our kids enjoyed the chance to do their own courtyard races.

Day 3

Because you bought the card after 10AM, you still have until 10AM to use the card on the next day. Many options open around 9AM, with others opening at 10, but the option we chose was probably one of the best we found, and it opens at 8:30—The Cable Car. A 10 minute ride up to the top of one of Salzburg’s tallest peaks, the views are spectacular. You have the rest of the morning to roam around at the top of the mountain, where there are plenty of hiking trails, and cafes if you need a bite to eat. Depending on when you bought your card the day before, you’ll want to make sure you check in for the ticket back down before the 24 hours are up. You can check in right when you get up to the peak and then take a later cable car down (or so they told us).

If you’re keeping track at home, that’s 8 of the possible activities done in 24 hours (and we did it with 4 kids!). Of course there are a plethora more things to do, including art museums, etc., but with kids we figured we’d skip those options. Money-wise, that makes the Salzburg Card about 3 Euro per adult per activity, and less than 2 Euro per kid per activity—and we have yet to see such a bargain in Europe!