Salzburg vs Vienna: which awesome Austrian city has more allure?

09.10.2023 - 18:53 / lonelyplanet.com / Kerry Walker

Mountains, music and sweets mit Schlag: Austria’s charms are irresistible, and draw millions of visitors each year.

Two of the country’s most populous cities, Salzburg and Vienna are – justifiably – also two of its most popular. But which one offers the better introduction to Austrian art and culture? Below, two well-published experts offer the case for their preferred place.
 

Kerry Walker lost her heart to Salzburg when she first authored the Lonely Planet Austria guide in 2007. Since then, she has roamed every crowd-free alley and climbed (almost) every mountain on the city’s fringes. 

Nowhere says “visit Austria!” like Salzburg – not even Vienna. This is, after all, where Mozart was born, got off to a flying start as a composer at age five, and where his tunes still reverberate in gilded concert halls that are among Europe’s finest.

This city was built grand and glorious by filthy-rich and madly ambitious prince-archbishops, who plonked a massive fortress high on a hill 900 years ago and went on to fill the Altstadt (now a Unesco World Heritage site) with palaces, galleries, domes, churches and baroque plazas. And it was here that everyone’s favorite yodeling nun – Maria von Trapp (played Julie Andrews) – taught the world to sing in The Sound of Music.  

Then, of course, there is that cinematic Alpine backdrop you can’t quite take your eyes off, which will send your soul soaring higher than Julie’s octave-leaping vocals.  

Vienna has its whirl of Habsburg palaces, galleries stuffed to the rafters with Klimts, coffee houses haunted by the ghosts of Sigmund Freud and Stalin, and the stately Ringstrasse boulevard.  But its grandeur can be overwhelming, and the city can feel standoffish.  

Not so with Salzburg. Sitting astride the turquoise Salzach River, this perfectly sized and laid-out city is crammed with a lifetime’s worth of culture and history – but you need never battle traffic or so much as hop on a tram or U-Bahn to see it. All you need is cobble-friendly shoes (and stout boots for straying into the mountains). And its petite proportions mean you can dive deep in a long weekend.   

While the rest of the world rushes through the 21st century, Salzburg rolls back the centuries. The Residenz palace is a joyous romp through time, with its chandelier-lit state apartments and gallery brimming with paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and their ilk. Trot a few minutes uphill and you’re at Stift Nonnberg, a Benedictine abbey echoing with 1300 years of history and festooned with Romanesque frescoes. (This was where novice nun Maria proved a problem in The Sound of Music.) Arrive at 6:45am, as the sun rises and the nuns sing Gregorian chorales, for a hairs-on-end moment. From here, you can walk above the city’s