My wife and I will be visiting Austria right at the tail end of the Salzburg Festival (last week of August). We frankly are trying to miss the crowds of the festival and are more interested in the business as usual sights that are normally disrupted during the festival. We have heard quite a few horror stories about the crowds and would like to avoid them as much as possible however we really cannot change our trip timing for many reasons. I'm wondering what the crowds are like in the final days of the festival and does it die off quickly on Sept 1st. We will be flying into Vienna and visiting there as well as Praque and can skew our Salzburg visit towards the end of our trip but ultimately we will end up there on the last few days of the Festival and possibly the 1st or 2nd of September. We are trying to schedule our trip 1 week later but it may take an act of god to allow my wife to get away from work that week since she is a teacher and school starts back up then. Have anyone been to Salzburg at the end of the Festival and can comment on the crowd levels?
Posted by
Firenze
500 posts
Well, Salzburg is quite crowded in August, but nothing you have to lose your mind about. The main consequence of the Festival is that at times when most important shows are staged, parking at the central parking houses seems to get scarce. But most of the crowds seem to be tourists unrelated to festival. Interestingly, I have observed that as soon as the festival is over crowds disappear; not only because festival patrons and workers go home, but also because Italian tourists, that are a good percentage of the crowds, are back home working in September.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
32746 posts
I've been there at the time of the Festival and didn't even know it was on until my hotelier said it was.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
Thanks, all.