Salzburg & the Salzkammergut
Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, is one of Europe's most beautiful cities, a baroque jewel of domes and spires cradled by mountains, crowned by the mighty Hohensalzburg Fortress and threaded by the Salzach River. Its UNESCO old town is a maze of elegant squares, the grand cathedral, and Getreidegasse with its wrought-iron shop signs, while the Mirabell Gardens and the surrounding hills star in The Sound of Music.
Just east unfolds the Salzkammergut, a storybook lake district of emerald lakes ringed by Alps, where the impossibly photogenic village of Hallstatt clings to a steep shore above its mirror-still lake. The lakes invite a slow pace: a boat across the water, a swim on a warm afternoon, a lakeside lunch in a village where the day visitors have come and gone.
Together they are Austria at its most romantic, a blend of high culture and alpine beauty. We love giving Salzburg a couple of unhurried days for its music and its old town, then weaving in the Salzkammergut for a night or two on the water, so the rhythm shifts from baroque grandeur to the quiet of the lakes.
