Austria · Old Town
Salzburg
A self-guided walking tour of the Salzburg Old Town, every street in one day.
Every street on the menu.
Every street in the Old Town of Salzburg is a line of dots you collect by walking it. I have been lying in one of them for six hundred years and I am still not finished.
At a glance
Plan your walk.
- Distance
- 27.1 km
- Time
- about 7.5 hours
- Streets
- 98
- Steps
- 10 streets with steps
- Start point
- Salzburger Dom
- Phone needed while walking
- no
- Works offline
- yes
- Expires
- never
The Old Town
Every street, drawn.
Every lane inside that line is a course. The circles are fruit.
Landmarks
What I would eat first.
Landmarks are fruit. The bigger the sight, the bigger the bonus.
Salzburger Dom 1,500 points
You will meet this one from three sides before you ever face the front, because the open stone wraps right around it. Come at it through the arches on the south flank rather than across the paving: it lands harder when you have been in the shade first. Then go in and look up. Main course.
Haus für Mozart 500 points
The whole festival quarter is dug into the cliff, and this is the piece of it you can stand right under without a ticket. Walk into the yard at the foot of the wall: sheer rock on one flank, doors on the other, and a stair climbing the face between them. In summer the yard belongs to everybody. In winter it is mine.
Mozarts Geburtshaus 500 points
Yellow, narrow, and impossible to miss in the busiest lane on this bank. Do not just join the queue at the door. Step back across the cobbles and look up: the shop signs hang far out over the street on wrought iron, because these buildings were too thin to spare any width for lettering. Then go in. I will wait out here with the ironwork.
Museum der Moderne 500 points
The plainest box on the skyline, parked along the ridge above the left bank like a loaf of white bread somebody set down and forgot. Two ways up: the quick one, and the footpath that winds you up the hillside in twenty minutes. Take the footpath. The path along the crest runs right past the entrance, and the view from it is free.
Schloss Mirabell 500 points
Do not stop at the railings. The pull here is the garden: stand at the top of the steps and the rock on the far side of the water drops neatly into the gap between the hedges, which somebody arranged on purpose a long time ago. Afterwards go inside and find the staircase. It is crawling with small stone figures, it is the most excessive object on this side of the river, and standing on it costs nothing.
Hettwerbastei 250 points
A ledge halfway up the quiet side of town, and one of the few high places here that costs nothing and has no queue. The climb to it is short and unkind. What you get for it is the entire opposite side laid out flat, roofs first, with the fortress sitting on top of the arrangement like a lid.
Kajetanerplatz 250 points
The far end of the left bank, where the crowd finally thins and the paving gets wider. Most visitors turn round before they get this far, which is exactly why I recommend it. Bring an empty bottle with you. There is a reason, and I am keeping it to myself.
Makartplatz 250 points
A wide open space on the right bank that most walkers cross at speed on their way to somewhere else. Slow down in the middle of it. One side is shut off by a church whose face curves inward instead of bulging out, which is a difficult and expensive way to close a space, and at the bus stop nobody ever looks at it. I do.
Mozartsteg 250 points
So narrow that two people have to be polite about it in the middle, and the middle is the place to stop. From there the whole left-hand skyline lines up in one row, and what is underneath you is the fastest thing in this town. Then keep going. Moving water under a street changes the texture, and I notice.
Müllner Kirche 250 points
The far north tip of this round, and a proper walk out to get there. Take the path by the water rather than the road: the tower keeps appearing and vanishing between the trees the entire way, which is a good trick for something that never moves. At the top you are well above the roofs, and everything you walked lies flat behind you.
Sebastianskirche 250 points
The busiest shopping lane on this side of the water has an unremarkable doorway in it that almost nobody uses. Go through. The noise stops dead on the other side, there are trees, and in the middle sits a small domed thing lined inside with coloured tiles. Two minutes off your route. Take them.
Eating
Actual food.
Almost nothing on the plate here started in the town. It came down the valleys. Cattle out of the Pinzgau, lambs off the Tennengau pastures, potatoes and rye from a basin a thousand metres up, vegetables carted in from the flat land under the Untersberg. The town sat where the roads crossed, and its prince archbishops kept a court kitchen that made plain things fine on purpose. Its most famous dish is three browned hills of beaten egg white. A mountain larder with a very good front room.
Meat and fish
Pinzgauer Rind
A mountain breed out of the Hohe Tauern, whose ancestors the register puts in those valleys with the Celts around 800 BC. It was kept for three jobs at once: milk, meat and pulling. The draught oxen even had their own name here, Übertäuerer, the ones that go over the Tauern. I have never been over a pass and I intend to keep it that way.
Ask whether it is Original Pinzgauer. The old breeding line is a recognised endangered breed, and the menu does not always say which one you are getting.
Tennengauer Berglamm
Lamb from the Tennengau, the district upriver towards Hallein, no more than six months old and mild with it. Sheep were the main animal on the high farms here until the end of the 1300s, under a system called Schwaigen that the lords of the land set up themselves in the twelfth century. Somebody has been walking animals up that valley for eight hundred years, which I consider a serious body of work.
Seesaibling
Char out of Austria's cold alpine lakes, firm and fine grained, with a mineral taste the register bothers to write down. It lives deep, and for centuries that meant the nobility ate it and nobody else did. Ordinary people got at it once fishing line became thin enough to be invisible in water. A fish that was protected by physics rather than by law.
Ask which lake it came out of. The Wolfgangsee gave up five thousand kilos in 1957 and a hundred and eighty twenty years later, and stocking is what holds the numbers up now.
Vegetarian
Salzburger Nockerln
Eggs, sugar and flour, and mostly it is the egg white. Three peaks baked golden, buried under icing sugar and carried out on a silver platter, shaped to look like the snowy hills standing round the town. Beating egg white stiff only worked its way into kitchens here after 1700, so this is a young dish doing a very good impression of an old one.
Pinzgauer Kaspressknödel
Dried bread cubes, onion, parsley, egg and plenty of the local cheese, pressed flat instead of rolled round and fried in butter. Pressed is what the dialect word means, and that is where the name comes from. In the Pinzgau, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday were the dumpling days, which is three days a week with the menu already settled.
A dumpling meal here comes in two halves, one to water and one to land. Ask for it to land and it arrives with green salad instead of broth.
Salzkammergut Käse
Cheese off the lakes and high pastures east of town, and the milk is the whole argument: the register ties the taste to the alpine plants the animals are standing in. It was also money. In 1390 the farms around there paid their ground rent to a nunnery in cheese, up to twelve rounds of one pound every Sunday from April to September. Rent you can eat. I approve of the entire arrangement.
Vegan
Lungauer Eachtling
Eachtling is what the Lungau calls a potato, grown in a closed alpine basin at around a thousand metres. It arrived late and it was not welcome. The register says the farmers' sons came home from six years of military service used to eating them, and that is what finally ended the argument. Beans had held those fields until then. Eighty hectares are left today, down from three hundred and sixty six in 1959, and nearly three quarters of them are organic.
Lungauer Tauernroggen
A winter rye bred for the Lungau since 1924, in trial gardens set up in 1933 at seven mountain farms between eleven hundred and thirteen hundred and fifty metres. Rye takes its pollen off the wind, so keeping the variety true means no other rye may stand anywhere near it. Almost all of the flour still goes to the households that grew it. A grain that hardly ever leaves home. I understand it completely.
Walser Gemüse
Vegetables off the flat land west of town, between the houses and the Untersberg. The trade turns up in writing in 1576, in a family handover contract that still sits in the abbey archive. In 1907 the schoolteachers of Wals asked the imperial ministry to move the school free day from Thursday to Saturday, because seventy six farmers had to get produce to market and needed their children to carry it. The ministry said no. Fifty of those seventy six were delivering into this city.
Late breakfast
MA MAKERS come for the one thing: the homemade cardamom bun
Kaigasse 26
Kaigasse, in the Kaiviertel. A small, plainly furnished neighbourhood café where every pastry comes entirely out of its own kitchen, and a coffee writer names the cardamom bun as the highlight. The cheese and butter come from Höflmaier, the eggs are organic, and breakfast follows the season until two. Cardamom came a very long way to end up in a bun on Kaigasse. It picked a good bun.
- Mon09:00–18:00
- Tueclosed
- Wed09:00–18:00
- Thu09:00–18:00
- Fri09:00–18:00
- Sat09:00–18:00
- Sun09:00–18:00
Closed on Tuesdays. Breakfast is served until two in the afternoon.
Sources: Falstaff, Salzburger Nachrichten, MeinBezirk Salzburg-Stadt, 1000things, Christof Strauss
Café Fingerlos where locals go
Franz-Josef-Straße 9
Franz-Josef-Straße, a few streets from Schloss Mirabell. Café, patisserie and Konditorei in one, and a city blog says its breakfast was the talk of the town back when most people still ate their first meal at home. The coffee is organic and Fairtrade, from the roaster Afro Coffee. It got to breakfast early. That is the right meal to be early to.
- Monclosed
- Tue07:30–19:30
- Wed07:30–19:30
- Thu07:30–19:30
- Fri07:30–19:30
- Sat07:30–19:30
- Sun07:30–19:30
Closed on Mondays, except in August.
Sources: Fräulein Flora
Afternoon coffee
Kaffee Alchemie come for the one thing: the pour-over
Rudolfskai 38
Rudolfskai, on the river road at the south end of the Old Town. The roasts rotate and come from small European roasters, each one made in the cup by a precise method, and more than ten single origins are on offer at a time. A city blog calls it the old hand on the Salzach. Ten origins, and each one waits its turn under a slow pour.
- Mon07:30–18:00
- Tue07:30–18:00
- Wed07:30–18:00
- Thu07:30–18:00
- Fri07:30–18:00
- Sat09:00–18:00
- Sun09:00–18:00
Sources: Falstaff, European Coffee Trip, Fräulein Flora, Christof Strauss
Röstzimmer 15 where locals go
Wolf-Dietrich-Straße 15
Wolf-Dietrich-Straße, in the Andräviertel. A small roastery with a café built into it, and the big roasting machine stands at the back of the room. The coffee in the cup is the house's own brand, roasted right there. Roasted at the back, poured at the front. A very short commute for a bean.
- Mon09:15–16:00
- Tue09:15–16:00
- Wed09:15–16:00
- Thu09:15–16:00
- Fri09:15–16:00
- Satclosed
- Sunclosed
Open on weekdays only, and it shuts at four in the afternoon.
Dinner
Gasthaus Hinterbrühl the old one
Schanzlgasse 12
Schanzlgasse, across the lane from the old prison. This house was first written down as an inn in 1380. The cooking is Austrian with a Mediterranean lean: roast pork fresh from the oven, Salzburg bratwurst, a bill in the middle of the range. This corner has been kept warm for a very long time. These days the oven does it.
- Mon11:30–22:00
- Tueclosed
- Wedclosed
- Thu11:30–22:00
- Fri11:30–22:00
- Sat11:30–22:00
- Sun11:30–22:00
Sources: Falstaff, gast.at, Fräulein Flora, Servus
Krimpelstätter where locals go
Müllner Hauptstraße 31
Müllner Hauptstraße, in Mülln. Salzburg home cooking with a twist, vegetarian dishes on the card, good value for the money, and a garden behind it that the guide calls beautiful. A local city blog calls it the very picture of a traditional inn. Home cooking with a twist is exactly the right amount of twist.
- Monclosed
- Tue11:00–23:00
- Wed11:00–23:00
- Thu11:00–23:00
- Fri11:00–23:00
- Sat11:00–23:00
- Sunclosed
The kitchen takes its last order at half past eight in the evening. Sundays, Mondays and public holidays it is closed.
Sources: Falstaff, Fräulein Flora
Checked 3 October 2026.
With kids
Short legs, big appetite.
The streets here are full of dots to collect, and a child on a hunt forgets to be tired. Here is a short loop for the smallest walkers.
- The loop
- Schloss Mirabell, Mozartsteg, Kajetanerplatz, Salzburger Dom, Mozarts Geburtshaus, and back to the start
- Distance
- 3.1 km
- Time
- about 60 minutes of walking at a child's pace (3 km/h)
- Steps
- on Mirabellplatz
- Playgrounds
- 1 near the loop
- Public toilets
- 7 near the loop, 5 with a changing table
- Drinking water
- 14 near the loop
- Ice cream
- 10 near the loop
Near the loop means within 150 m of it, counted from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Name origin
Why it is called Salzburg.
Salt named this place. From the end of the 7th century the bishop here held the biggest share in the salt works at Reichenhall, and a few decades after that the town's German name was simply the name of the cargo. Before that it was Iuvavum, a Celtic word nobody can eat. Salzburg turns up in writing around 755 and has been left alone ever since. A whole city named after a seasoning. I can work with that.
Sources: www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de; austria-forum.org
Why here
Somebody stood here and decided.
Everybody here started high up. The Celts sat on the Kapuzinerberg, the Rainberg, the Bürglstein and the Festungsberg, which makes sense if what you want is to be left alone. Rome arrived in 15 BC, emptied the hilltops and put a town down on the flat by the left bank instead, because a hilltop keeps you alive and a riverbank makes you rich. The valley opens into a basin here at the northern edge of the Alps, with the water cut straight through the middle of it and the hills standing round the rim. That is why this round has two halves and a crossing in between.
Sources: austria-forum.org; www.bda.gv.at
Why then
When the first stone went down.
Twice, and the second time out of the first one's remains. Rome built Iuvavum down on the flat, and Claudius gave it municipal rights around the year 45. Then the Roman administration fell apart, the valley emptied, and the place went quiet for two hundred years. About 696 a bishop called Rupert turned up, the Bavarian duke made him a present of the ruins, and he founded the monastery of Sankt Peter inside them. A city passed on second hand, and it held.
Sources: austria-forum.org
Who ruled
Everyone who thought they owned this.
I outlasted all of them. It is the one thing I am good at.
- 45–500
Rome. The town on the flat had municipal rights from about the year 45 and sat in the province of Noricum for four centuries. Then the administration came apart. A Christian community and a monastery are recorded here in the late 400s, and part of the old population simply moved back up onto the fortified terrace above the town, which is where the whole thing had started.
Sources: austria-forum.org
- 739–1803
The bishops, and then the bishops as princes. Salzburg became a bishop's seat in 739 and was raised to an archbishopric in 798. After that the churchmen spent five hundred years turning a diocese into a country: a king confirmed their jurisdiction in 1278, they issued their own body of law in 1328, and by 1342 an archbishop was calling the place his Land in writing. None of that was decided down in the lanes.
Sources: austria-forum.org; www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de
- 1803–1816
Thirteen years, four owners. The secularisation of 1803 ended the prince-archbishopric and made Salzburg the seat of an electorate. In 1805 it went to the Austrian empire, in 1810 Bavaria took possession, and in 1816 the Treaty of Munich handed it back to Austria. Whole countries changed hands over this valley in less time than it takes a lane to wear down a step.
Sources: www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de
- 1816–
Austria, at last, and slowly. The title said Duchy of Salzburg from 1816, but for decades it was administered as one district of the province next door, with the courts and the offices sitting in Linz. It became a crown land of its own in 1850, in practice 1861, and the city got its own municipal statute in 1869. Since November 1918 it has been a federal state, and the town I lie in is its capital.
Sources: www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de; austria-forum.org
The emblem
What the shield means.
A silver crenellated wall on red, with the gate standing open, and three towers behind it under gold roofs. The middle tower is broader and taller than the other two, and that is the whole argument. The arms go back to a town seal in use here since 1249, and on that seal the tall middle tower is the tower of the town hall. Not the cathedral. Not the fortress. In a place run by archbishops for a thousand years, the citizens put their own roof on the shield and left the gate wide open. The open gate is the part I approve of.
Sources: www.ris.bka.gv.at; wiki.sn.at
Emblem: Public domain — official coat of arms (Wikimedia Commons)
Three facts
Three things I know about this place.
The big squares around the cathedral are not generosity. They are holes. Archbishop Wolf Dietrich set out to turn a cramped late-Gothic town into a German Rome, and to clear the ground for those squares he had fifty-five burgher houses pulled down. So walking out of the tight lanes onto that open stone is walking out of the citizens' town and into the churchmen's one. Two towns, one Old Town, and I can taste the seam.
Sources: austria-forum.org; www.bda.gv.at
In 996 the emperor gave this town three rights in one go: to hold a market, to take a toll, and to strike its own coin. That is three separate ways of earning a living off people walking past. I have exactly one, and it is slower than all of them.
Sources: austria-forum.org
There were two rings of wall here, the first raised between the 11th and 13th centuries and the second between 1465 and 1480, with a further belt of works added in the 1620s and 1630s. Then in 1860 the city stopped counting as a fortress, and in 1866 the emperor made the town a present of the works between Schloss Mirabell and the Linzertor. They came down between 1867 and 1874, and the stone never left: it went into the riverbanks and the drains. A town that ate its own wall is a town I can learn from.
Sources: www.stadt-salzburg.at; wiki.sn.at
Street words
What the names on the signs mean.
- Gasse
- A lane, and the ordinary word for a street here. Getreidegasse, Goldgasse, Judengasse, Steingasse, Brodgasse, Pfeifergasse. Count the names ending in -gasse and you have most of your day accounted for.
- Gässchen
- The same thing, made smaller. Badergässchen, Döllerergässchen, Königsgässchen, Sterngässchen. When a lane here is too narrow to be called a lane, it gets a diminutive instead of more room.
- Passage
- A way straight through the inside of a building, and this town is riddled with them. Azwanger Passage, Fabrizi Passage, Aula Passage, Rathauspassage, Schmuckpassage, and the Schatz Durchhaus, which says the same thing in plainer German. The block is the wall and the passage is the bite.
- Stiege
- A stair that counts as a street. Imbergstiege, Nonnbergstiege, Michael-Haydn-Stiege, Alma-Rosé-Stiege. The ground here goes up at both edges, so some of the level is vertical. Steps have dots on them too.
- Kai
- The embankment along the water, walled and paved once the river was straightened. Elisabethkai, Franz-Josef-Kai, Giselakai, Rudolfskai. One imperial family took all four. Efficient.
- Steg
- A footbridge, as against a Brücke, which has to carry cars. Müllnersteg, Marko-Feingold-Steg. On this round the Stege are the good crossings and the Staatsbrücke is the loud one.
The size of it
Walk it in a day: Salzburg in numbers.
Counted from the streets in the level itself, not from a guidebook.
- 98streets
- 1,421dots
- 21.8km of street
- 27.1km on foot
- 7.5hours at a stroll
Nearby
Old Towns close to this one.
The game
Your first city is free.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone. Claim any city as your free one. Every other city is a one-time purchase you keep for good, Family Sharing included, and a city you own plays fully offline.