Berchtesgaden and the salt mines in one day?

The salt mines are practically in downtown Berchtesgaden. It's hard to imagine you couldn't. There are two easy ways to get to Berchtesgaden from Salzburg. The train goes across the river from Salzburg Hbf to Freilassing, Germany, and from there it either continues to Berchtesgaden or sometime you have to change in Freilassing for a train to Berchtesgaden. Either way it takes about an hour. There is also a bus, the Watzmann Express, that goes up the river from the Salzburg Hbf to Berchtesgaden. Again, it takes about an hour. If you buy an RVO Tagesticket, for €9,- per adult, it will cover not only the bus from Salzburg, round trip, but also any bus travel that day in Berchtesgaden.

To save time, you could buy your ticket to the salt mines online the day before you go. When I was there a couple of summers ago, we waited in line to buy tickets, then had to wait another hour or so until our entrance time and I think we were in the mines about 2 hours. We still had a couple of hours to walk around the town of Berchtesgaden.

We did the salt mines in Berchtesgaden from Salzburg, we were done with the tour well before lunch. It was a cloudy day so we opted to skip the views and headed back to Salzburg. If it had been a nice day, we would have had half a day left to explore.

We've done it. We had our car. Spent the morning and early afternoon up the mountain, went to the lake for a boat ride. No boat ride because the skies opened :-( Back to the Salz Werke, parked, and straight in. Good time. This was mid June.