Please sign in to post.

Travelling to Salzburg, St.Wolfgang, Hallstatt, Vienna for the 1st time. Please help. Thanks a lot!

Posted by on

HI there: Hope this message find you well. I will be going to Salzburg, St.Wolfgang, Hallstatt, and Vienna with my family for the first time. Any comment / recommendation to any of my following questions is very welcome & greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

I did some research online from this forum (past posts) & other reviews from other forum, I have gathered the following information, but I need your help to confirm if those information are correct & if there is any better ways to do it better in terms of a tight schedule, time allocation, transportation & cost-wise. Please see my following pre-matured itinerary.

Day 1 - Arriving at the Vienna airport around 4pm, plans to take a train to Salzburg
Day 2 - Salzburg city tour (We want to visit as many attractions as possible in one day: Hohensalzburg Castle, Mirabell Gardens, Hellbrunn Palace, St Peter's Abbey, Salzburg Cathedral, Schloss Leopoldskron, shopping lanes of the Old Town, Old Market Square, Hohensalzburg (cable car), Nonnenberg Abbey, Mozart dinner show
Day 3 - Salzburg > Lake District Area - St Gilgen > St Wolfgang (Salzkammergut) > Hallstatt > back to Salzburg
Day 4 - Spend the most half day in Salzburg for any leftover attractions from Day 2 before taking a train back to Vienna & we will spend 2 extra days in Vienna before we take the train to Prague

(1). Frankly, we prefer not to take train from Vienna to Salzburg on Day 1, & from Salzburg back to Vienna on Day 4. We prefer to take train directly from Salzburg to Prague, however, we found out it would cost a lot more from Salzburg to Prague on the train ride than Vienna to Prague, even though we go back & forth between Vienna & Salzburg, but the time is about the same either way. Would that be harder to train & ferry from Vienna to Hallstatt. Ferry closed at night?

(2). For Salzburg city tour, we won't join any local tour, but plans to take trains or by foot as we are hoping to visit as many attractions as possible in 1.5 day on Day 2 & half day in Day 4. Based on the attractions listed above, do you think it is too ambitious & would it be possible to make it happen, if we start out around 11am - 12noon & can travel as late as midnight on Day 2 & we will probably have a few hours left on Day 4. Please advise.

(3). On Day 3 - We will start out around 10am from Salzburg >> Lake District Area - St Gilgen > St Wolfgang (Salzkammergut) > Hallstatt > back to Salzburg.

We are considering to stay at St Wolfgang for about 2-3 hours & walk around the shops & take the cable car up the Zwölferhorn mountain after taking the boat ride from St Gilgen to St Wolfgang. We will then be going from St Wolfgang to Hallstatt for about 2-3 hours & hopefully to get a chance to visit a salt mine or if not, we will simply just take some pics, walk around & have a dinner before we take the train back to Salzburg. Do you think it is too ambitious & would it be possible? As much as we want to spare more time on these small villages, we have a very tight schedule. Any advice?

(4) Is that right to take bus from Salzburg HBF to St Wolfgang by Bus 150 to Strobl bus station & get off at Strobl & transfer to Bus 546 to St Wolfgang?

(5). Would you suggest to take Bus #150 from Salzburg HBF to St Gilgen & take a boat ride from St Gilgen to St Wolfgang across Wolfgangsee? Which bus stop (#150) at St Gilgen is closer to the dock for boat ride to St Wolfgang?

(6). Is that right to take the Bus #546 to Bad Ischl & then take train to Hallstatt station & ferry across the lake to the village? Any easier way?

(7). From Hallstatt to Salzburg, should we take ferry from the Hallstatt Market across the lake to the Hallstatt Station & get off at Attnang-Puchheim station to Salzburg? We are considering to take train back to Salzburg at night because we tried to save time & there is nothing much to see at that time. What's the last train back to Salzburg? Any website?

Thank you so much.

Posted by
2903 posts

Hi jojo,

If you want some help/advice, I think you need to condense your post.
I read some of it and your days seem too packed.

Posted by
5380 posts

  1. Where are you looking at fares for the train? It makes no sense that you are finding it to be cheaper to go all the way back to Vienna to get to Prague. Look at www.oebb.at and buy a SparSchiene ticket for the Salzburg to Prague leg. It should be 19 Euro. Here are the instructions - http://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Salzburg.htm#Salzburg-Prague

  2. You'll be exhausted.

  3. The salt mine takes about 3 hours alone, with the walking up, tour and getting back down. Either do Hallstatt or Wolfgangsee. You really can't do both in one day, especially by public transportation.

  4. Use www.oebb.at for schedules.

  5. See above.

  6. See above.

  7. See above.

Posted by
856 posts

What others said, plus: Pace yourself. This is a pretty frantic pace and a lot of reliance on the local bus system. Download the OBB app, get a SIM card with data and let that be an on-the-ground guide to times, etc.

Salzburg is pretty compact and a nice walking town. Take the cog train up to the castle and give that an hour or so of your time. The walk above the town back to the north end is rather nice with great views of the old (and new) town.

Again, you are really putting up a frantic pace. Also, if you insist on Salzburg-to-Prague, consider travel to Munich then hub to Prague. It may be geographically further but takes less time and could cost less.

Enjoy your travels!

Posted by
19092 posts

Is that right to take the Bus #546 to Bad Ischl & then take train to
Hallstatt station & ferry across the lake to the village? Any easier
way?

You can also take a bus from Bad Ischl to Hallstatt. The bus station for Hallstatt is actually in Lahn, a half km south along the lake from Hallstatt, very close to the base of the incline going up to salt mine. I did this in 2009 because my accommodations were in Lahn.

I don't think you'll have time to do everything you want to do in one day - St. Wolfgang AND Hallstatt AND travel. And, Hallstatt is worth way more than 2-3 hours. Are you just trying to check it off of your list - to be able to tell others you were there, without having really seen it.

I left Salzburg at 9 AM and went to Bad Ischl via Mondsee, which might be slightly longer route, timewise. I spent a few hours in Mondsee but did not stop at St. Wolfgang. I arrived in Lahn just before three.

Posted by
13925 posts

I am not an expert but I just finished the Germany, Austria, Switzerland tour and many of our group went to the Mozart dinner at St Peter-Stiftskeller. The dress was smart casual- no athletic shoes, men needed to wear shirts with collars. I did not go for several reasons including the fact that I only had tennis shoes but the general sense I got from most was the food was mediocre for the price and the music was good but not great. The informal reviews definitely depended on where folks were located in the room. Some of the tour members were seated to the side and behind the performers and had poor experiences due to that.

I'm posting this because your schedule for Salzburg looks way too packed to me and this dinner would kind of be at the bottom of the list of things to see and do there. There also may be other Mozart dinners of which I am not aware.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.