Day trip to Vienna from Salzburg

I once did a similar Blitz Tour of Vienna. I had an invitation to watch the training session of the Lipizaners in the Spanish Riding School with my friends. We left Bad Ischl – not far from Salzburg - very early to be in Vienna for start of the training at 8 am. When it was over, I think it was around 10am, we embarked on a whirl wind tour of Vienna. My host knows Vienna, so he showed us around. He led us through Belvedere Gardens and through the Palace, but we didn’t stop and look, we only walked in one end and out the other. Then we walked around the Ring and Inner Vienna, where most of the attractions are, and we did it on the fly, so to speak. We snapped a few pictures of notable statues and buildings and kept moving. At one point we took a tram to cover more ground. We did make it to the top of Stefans Turm and had a wonderful view of the whole city. We even saw the large Ferris Wheel of the Prater in the background. The binoculars really helped. Around 5pm we were still looking for the Crypt of the Habsburgs, but when we finally got there it had just closed. By that time I needed some coffee and a restroom. So we quickly ducked into McDonalds before we had to hoof it to the train station for our trip back to Ischl.

It was a lot of fun, this Blitz Tour, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. If you have something similar in mind, then a one day trip to Vienna is definitely the thing for you. For my part, I’ll do it in a more leisurely fashion, next time.

RailJet does the trip either way in about 2h40m. That's 5h20m round trip, plus time getting to/from stations. You'll probably spend as much time traveling as "seeing".

There are some things to see around Salzburg, like Berchtesgaden (Eagles' Nest, Dokumentation Center, Königssee), the Salzkammergut lakes, Herrenchiemsee, Hallstatt. If you haven't seen any of these, I would consider staying closer to Salzburg.

I did this very thing, stayed a week in Salzburg and a day trip to Vienna. I would have loved to stay longer than a day there, and so true, not a lot of time for sightseeing. Because I was there for such a short time, I took a bus tour that was really terrible! We didn't get out of the bus much and how frustrating it was to see Vienna from a window in a bus. The Hop On/Off bus would have been way better than being trapped in a tour bus. I was in Salzburg mainly for business, (I'm a classical musician) and had much to do there and had to stay a week. Poor me! Lol! But I do want to go back to Vienna and stay much longer next time.

There is far too much to see in Vienna to make it a day trip. Better to visit Berchtesgaden, Konigsee or even Herrn Chiemsee for day trips.

We did this while staying in Salburg for a week. We checked the train times the day before and bought tickets for the earliest train out, which was real early, so we went back to sleep when we got on board. When we arrived in Vienna we checked the train times for the last train back, and got our tickets for that then set off to spend the day in Vienna. We took a city tour for orientation and then set off to see the major sites. It was a whirlwind, but we really enjoyed it.

We did a day trip to Vienna in 2008. We started quite a bit closer (Melk) so maybe had more time. You will have to decide how much time in Vienna you need to make it worth your while. For us, we were like you. We had been to Austria numerous times, but never made it Vienna. It was a last minute, unexpected day (too long a story) but I am glad we did it. However, I wish we had had more time to plan. I think these one day blitz tours work best if you have done a lot of research and laid out exactly what you hope to see and how much time you will have at each place. We did a one day blitz tour of Rome in 2003 where I did just that. It was awesome. Obviously, we could have spent more time there, but all we had was a day so we went for it. We have never regretted it. I have done some of the other day trips mentioned by others, and they are all good as well. Do your research, make your decision, than don't look back. I have done some crazy things in my travels and most of them have worked out great.

Thanks to all,for all your help.

We knew before we asked the question that the journey was going to be a stretch. We've done many of the suggested local activities and enjoyed them immensely.

We'll do yet more this year, but we have been tempted by the thought that the train times have come down. So the original question was has the RailJet made it close enough? We certainly do plan, I plan to within an inch, then plan again. The purpose of the day would be to have a taste of Vienna, so we can plan a return visit another year.

We hope to ride trams around the ring, have a look at Schoenbrunn, and have a look at Stephansdom and around the Hofburg, and a bite to eat. That sounds like a pretty good day to us.

What do you think?