Soooo many questions!

Mozart; If you are into Mozart, go to one where you know you will love the program. It you aren't into classical music, go to one where the program has 1] an overture, 2] a concerto, and 3] any a serenade or any symphony except #40 . Any concert including "die Schlitzenfahrt" trumps all others. Tourist trap concerts tend to very short and very expensive on cost per minute basis. Time the options.

Vienna top sights: The State Library (Hoffburg); Long tour, Shoenbrunn Palace; Demel

Everybody wants to go to Hallstatt on the Hallstattersee. Everybody should go to the Gosausee. Look for a local tour to both.

Rain is always a risk in the Alps. That's why they are so green.

You definitely should have purchased your tickets already as, at this point, the low cost fares are gone. You will now be paying double or maybe triple of what you should have paid.

For your train travel within Austria, use the ÖBB website. For the Salzburg to Vienna leg there is also the private Westbahn train, so check their website as well.

Thank you so much! The Mozart suggestions really help!
The reason why I didn't purchase train tickets was because most people recommended purchasing on the day at the station. I hope I haven't screwed up too much.

Can I fit Hallstatt and Gosausee on the same day?

I'll address one of those questions: yes, a light rain jacket and a sweater are good to have with you just about anywhere, anytime, in Europe. Even if you see weather forecasts predicting high temps and sunny days, the weather in the mountains is variable (to say the least) and it can still be chilly at night.

Can I fit Hallstatt and Gosausee on the same day?

Yes, with a rental car. I don't know about train/bus because we don't use them-- too time consuming. There should be local tour outfits in Salzburg that do. Start looking with Viator.

Pretty sure no one recommends buying the tickets on the day of travel as that is by far the most expensive option. Who said that?

Emily I must have misunderstood. I thought I had read that in multiple forums and had seen it on rick steves videos.

Mozart: I like going to performances that are geared toward the locals. The challenge for you in Salzburg is that you will be there immediately before the start of the Salzburg Festival, so the venues for the locals are very quiet. That limits you to the concerts for tourists. There is an events calendar that gives you your options. I will say I enjoyed an Advent performance at the fortress in the room where the Mozart performances take place. Another poster has mentioned very much liking the Mozart dinner. Others have mentioned liking the Mirabell performances. If you don't know much about Mozart/classical music, look up the programs for the performances you have the option of seeing and then search for the music on YouTube to see if it speaks to you.

Vienna: For a performance in Vienna, I would definitely go to the Musikverein on July 21 for the performance by the Diocesan Boys' School Symphony Orchestra. The venue was built during the reign of Franz Josef and is Habsburg gorgeous. The Great Hall (Großer Saal) is considered one of the best concert halls in the world. The orchestra is from Hong Kong and appears quite good in YouTube videos. Beethoven's Ninth is on the program (Beethoven spent around 35 years in Vienna). And it's all for 10 euro per ticket.

AT&T: You can probably make it with phone over internet and downloaded maps, but you may want to sign up for the International Day Pass plan just to be safe -- it extends your home plan to an international plan for $10/day if you talk, text, or use data on your phone (make sure data function is turned off).

Thank you Dave! I love the suggestions!

When in Salzburg, we went to a concert at Mirabell Palace. It was pretty much a normal concert - didn't seem overly expensive, and people were not wearing ridiculous costumes. The concert hall is very nice, not big - we had no trouble getting tickets.

When we were in Salzburg, we took a tour with Bob's Tours. We did Hallstadt and the Sound of Music. It was fun, and it was small. There were a max of 8 people on the tour. We stopped in a nice little restaurant for lunch.

I have no idea why you want to call home. Perhaps you have a good reason. We use email which is widely available, as you can find wifi in your hotel, almost every coffee shop, and sometimes in city centers. Stick with email, and save $10/day.

Not counting arrival day, you plan to see 3 fairly distant cities in four days. It may take the better part of one day to move from one city to another. You risk having memories of looking for hotels and checking in & out with not a lot of time for much else.

@ brandy...Should you decide to call home or any where else, (I do it too as a solo traveler off and on, but more off), one option you have is to go to an internet cafe, also called a "call shop" That's what I do. I don't know how prevalent they are in Vienna.

Where I stay in the area Westbahnhof is an internet cafe a few minutes walk, ca 10 mins or so, from the hotel.

If you plan to see the Last Supper in Milan "potential plans", I hope you have already purchased your tickets.
We never use our phones to call home, but use WiFi on an iPad for email to check in with family.
Have a great trip!

Brandy, you probably did see suggestions about buying train tickets the same day for tickets from the airport on arrival date, since planes can be late, immigration process can take extra time. For all other trains, however, the usual suggestions are to buy tickets when the books open and the low-price options are still available.
Sorry you got a mixed message.

Fred - Internet cafes don’t exist anymore. Everyone uses WiFi now.

Internet cafes may be hard to find but they do exist. True, I know one in Vienna, the one I go to. In Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich, Paris, Frankfurt I go to an internet cafe too. You just need to know where they are.

But I have WiFi, so I don’t need to know where they are :)

Easy question first: bring a rain jacket.

For international plan, read up on how to avoid data charges on AT&T Site. If you are disciplined, you don’t need a plan. But you need to have your phone set up right. It is might be trickier than you expect. The $10 a day plan is easy to trigger. Read the details so you don’t have surprises. The $60 plan is the easiest. You’re the only one who can figure out which is the best choice.

For train tickets and the Last Supper. You are where you are. Where do you go from here? Get to the web and look for Last Supper tickets, now. If they’re gone, can you take a tour and see it? Sometimes you just show up and someone has an extra ticket. You never know. If you miss it this time, life goes on. Go back and see it next time.

Train tickets. Get on to the internet. See what is still available. I haven’t been in this part of Europe in many years. Is there a bus option? Add up the cost of train tickets. Would a pass be cheaper? Passes are almost always more expensive but maybe something would work on this case.

Good luck. For your next trip, buy RS book and use this forum, and plan early. You’ll save some money and see what you want to see. But you will still have a nice trip this time, just more expensive.

For international plan, read up on how to avoid data charges on AT&T
Site. If you are disciplined, you don’t need a plan. But you need to
have your phone set up right. It is might be trickier than you expect.
The $10 a day plan is easy to trigger.

Yes, Eef is correct. It is easy to trigger the $10/day plan. The best strategy is to keep the phone in airplane mode with Wi-fi turned on. The goal is to never need the $10/day plan, but it's nice to have it as a backup if you need it. Since you will hopefully never need the $10/day plan, it is more cost effective than the $60 Passport Plan for a month.

Thank you all so much. I'm going to consider the mistake on the train tickets a lesson learned abs I'm going to get the AT&T plan just in case. The only reason I wanted a way to call home is that we're have 4 young kids starting with the grandparents. I'm sure we will be able to find plenty of wifi. You guys helped me nail down Mozart plans and vienna plans. Thank you!

Does anyone know about if I should try to go hang gliding on the day we travel or Obergesteln or if I should do it on that free day? Or we could even go on the day we leave to Innsbruck but that makes for a really long day. I wasn't sure if certain companies or areas were significantly better than others.