Options When Visiting Festung Hohensalzburg

Date: June 14, 2018 and June 15, 2018
Location: Salzburg, Austria

To visit Festung Hohensalzburg, the fortress on top of the hill, there are a few options. The choices that need to be made are:

• All-inclusive or basic ticket
• Walk or take the funicular
• Can you go before 10 am? If so you can save money

The first choice you have to make is do you want to see everything with an all-inclusive ticket, or do you want a basic ticket. The difference is that the all-inclusive ticket includes the magic theater and prince’s chambers. The magic theater is a 7-minute story that has a moving model and screen behind. The prince’s chambers are several rooms that are mostly empty. The all-inclusive ticket is €2 – 3 more (based on adult ticket price) than the basic ticket.

The next option is how you choose to get up the hill. You can either walk or take the funicular – basically a small railway pod that brings you up the mountain. The funicular could cost between €0.20 – 3.80 depending on how you buy your ticket and if you do the all-inclusive or basic option.

You can save €2.30 on the all-inclusive ticket with the funicular by buying it online and an additional €1.30 if you go before 10 am. Online does not give you the option to purchase the basic ticket or tickets if you walk.

If you were thinking of the basic ticket with the funicular it is a little cheaper, €0.30, to buy the all-inclusive ticket with the funicular and go before 10 am.

If you enjoy a walk up the mountain with nice views, the all-inclusive ticket is €0.20 cheaper than the all-inclusive ticket with the funicular and going before 10 am.

Since we don’t mind walking, we decided to walk and go with the all-inclusive ticket. This also allowed us more flexibility since we didn’t need to get there before 10 am to get the better price.

Once we bought our all-inclusive ticket after walking, we noticed that it included a one-way ride on the funicular. When I looked at the prices at the funicular station I didn’t see an option to just ride up and then walk down, but it may also be an option. Since we already walked up and had a ticket, we decided to ride the funicular on the way down.

If you choose to walk to Festung Hohensalzburg there are a few different paths you can take. On the map below I added the larger purple triangles with the numbers 1-6. You can get up Mönchsberg and to Festung Hohensalzburg by starting at any one of those places.

Even if you choose to take the funicular, you should plan to walk up and explore once on Mönchsberg. There are a few lookouts with nice views and there are also a couple cafés on the hill, which are excellent places to grab a quick coffee or beer and enjoy the sights.

You can go up Mönchsberg on any day to take in the excellent views over Salzburg for free. We walked around the top of Mönchsberg the day before we went to Festung Hohensalzburg.

Since our Airbnb is closest to number 5 on the map, we started there and went up Mönchsberg to get to Festung Hohensalzburg. There are stairs going up.

There are signs pointing which way to go, so it was easy to navigate to the entrance. There are some great view of Festung Hohensalzburg along the way.

Here is the last path up to buy tickets, if you choose the walking option.

On the portion of the tour of Festung Hohensalzburg with an audio guide, you go to the top of a tower where there is a 360-degree view. Below is looking out over the old town of Salzburg.

You can see Schloss Mirabell.

We could also see that in Kapitelplatz Square the start and finish area of the Mozart100 race, which was the next day, was being set up.

In the Marionette museum, which is included with both the basic and all-inclusive tickets, make sure to look on the floor to see the skeleton that is below you and all of the money that has been dropped. The skeleton is the Archbishop Wolf Dietrich.

Since the ticket we bought included a one-way ride on the funicular, we decided to take it down.