Back when I used to sell trips to Austria for a living, Darek and I decided to actually go and visit the places that I was advertising. The 5-day Austria itinerary that we came up with was so nice, diverse, and interesting, that we are happy to recommend it with you.
We already knew Vienna, so we decided to visit the Wachau valley, Salzkammergut and Salzburg, and Innsbruck. We borrowed a friend’s car, so we tried to split the distances in a clever way. As Couchsurfers looking for a bit of extra comfort, we were very satisfied with Airbnb: in all three locations we were hosted in special homes by warm and open-minded people who made our holiday even more authentic.
Interested in more of our efficient itineraries? Find them all here!
5-day Austria itinerary by car
1st day: 320 km until Krems, then peaceful sightseeing along the Wachau valley and towns for 40 km until Melk, finally 20 km until our Airbnb host.
2nd day: 200 km until Mondsee in the Salzkammergut region, then 30 km around lake Mondsee and Wolfgangsee, finally 200 km until our Airbnb hostel in the mountains close to Innsbruck.
3rd day: Only 60 km to go to Innsbruck and 80 to come back, with a stop at Achensee.
4th day: 190 km from Innsbruck to Salzburg.
5th day: 550 km from Salzburg to Budapest, with a stop at Mondsee.
TOTAL: 1700 km, around 170 € + 10€ vignette
Considering the short time available, we are quite satisfied with the itinerary. The highway connecting Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck (through Germany, no toll) is very useful, but on the side roads we also had the possibility to dive in the autumn foliage and escape civilization. Also, it was always Darek driving, thus the stops and rests.
Wachau valley
The scenery from Krems to Melk is a peaceful and ancient fairy tale. Gentle hills and tidy vineyards on the northern bank, steeper rocks covered with woods on the southern one, diving into the Danube.
Krems is a pretty Austrian town, its main pedestrian street has with colorful houses and fancy boutiques – we just had lunch and a stroll. We kept driving on the northern bank and drove around the village of Dürnstein, where is the castle where king Richard (of Robin Hood) was held captive (and his ransom paid for the city walls of Vienna!).
Finally, in Melk we visited the Benedictine Abbey, a true must-see (very well organized with an enormous parking on top of the hill; ticket for adults 10€, with guided tour 12€). Luckily, we joined a guided tour, because the written explanations in the rooms are not enough (there are also booklets on sale).
The enormous, bright yellow building occupies a hill overlooking the town of Melk, the Danube and the whole valley. The itinerary shows the history of the Benedictine monks and of the monastery itself, using colours, lights, sculptures, mirrors and much more to help the visitor feel all the events that happened there – a very unusual exhibition. The impressive library boasts books dating 800 years back! Just looking at them makes you imagine the monks bent on the pages, writing for years and years.
The highlight of the tour is the baroque abbey church, a triumph of wealth, gold, decorations and details – after all, the noblemen who funded it wanted the glory of God together with their place in Paradise!
The whole tour lasts around 1 hour and the church is worth the whole trip. Check the wine at the souvenir shops – we bought a very nice red, whose label was designed by the students of the high school within the Abbey itself!
After that, we found the town underneath the Abbey very empty, because of the season and the already chilly weather. On the contrary, the abbey was very crowded with organized trips. After a short walk in the very short main street, we hid from the cold at Café Corrado, a very welcoming and simple coffee and cake shop. The waitress and the owner were extremely friendly and played along my surprise: I asked for a candle on Darek’s cake to celebrate his birthday, and they came up with a decorated plate with a firework candle, and singing!
Salzkammergut
The beautiful Austrian lakes near Salzburg were our destination on the way from Melk to Innsbruck. Unfortunately, the rain did not stop one single second during the day and the clouds were covering the mountains, still we enjoyed some very picturesque sights.
We exited the highway at Mondsee and went to visit St. Michael’s church, which features in the “Sound of Music” movie, a beautiful baroque combination of delicate pink and gold decorations and dark black altars, covered by an amazing gothic net-vault.
From there it’s a short drive to St. Gilgen (where Mozart’s mother was born) a small town overlooking Wolfgangsee, where the funicular to mountain Zwölferhorn starts.
We had an excellent lunch at Gasthof Zur Post and finally drove around the lake to St. Wolfgang, where we ate a delicious kaiserschmarn at the famous White Horse Inn, overlooking the lake.
All the towns were simply stunning, the houses painted with bright colours and traditional frescoes, wooden balconies and thick doors – we want to go back there one day, when the weather is better, to see all the things that the clouds and our umbrella were hiding! Even in these conditions, with the lakes flooding the fields and the canals, the scenery was very pictoresque, with mist rising and the autumn foliage brightening up our way.
Because of the weather, we only spent 5 hours in this region, before making our way to Innsbruck. On the last day, when we left from Salzburg to Budapest, we made a quick stop to Mondsee, and just a glimpse of the peaks and sunlight convinced is to come again!
As we were crossing the mountains towards Innsbruck I fell asleep, as usual, and woke up to the traumatic sight of 10 cm of slushy snow. We went on and on in the darkness, exited the highway, on and on through a valley, took a side road, up and up, more and more narrow… I remembered that we had booked a traditional hostel all covered in wood, but I was not expecting that!
The Blue Bird Hostel in Gatterberg was a very pleasant surprise: a traditional house, half built of wall for humans and half in wood for cows and hay, located on a very steep mountain road in a village crossed by a winding road. The theme is snowboarding and the target are young people who are looking for a cheap and friendly place to stay, not too far from the slopes. We sat down at the wide and cozy kitchen table and had a long chat with the owners, a young couple of travellers, and a couple of young Austrians who were indeed going snowboarding the following day. Our room was an Austrian dream: covered with Swiss (cembro) pine wood from floor to ceiling, a wide and soft bed on one side and a sofa on the other, the windows overlooking the valley and the peaks on the other side… It is absolutely worth the climb!
Innsbruck
So in my head, all Austria (apart from Vienna) was wooden houses and pastures, and of course I could not have been more mistaken.
Innsbruck is quite a big town (the winter Olympic games of 1964 and 1976 were held here) located on the river Inn. It was originally a roman colony, but it flourished during the Middle Ages thanks to the Habsburgs, who ruled over Austria for centuries – as a consequence, the old town boasts Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture.
We recently passed by Innsbruck at sunrise, and it was amazing!
The main street, Maria Theresia Strasse (there’s a hidden cheap parking at the crossing with Maximilianstrasse!), starts with a triumph arch -looking slightly out of place- and continues with Neoclassical and Baroque buildings, some large and strong, some narrow and delicate, some plain and sober, some rich and golden… A truly diverse and marvellous sight.
In the inner city, Maria Theresia Strasse becomes even more narrow, until the main square concentrates all of these different styles and centuries: the ground floors of the buildings have bare and strong Medieval pillars, the Golden Roof is a Renaissance masterpiece, and finally the Heiblinghaus is a triumph of Rococo exaggerations.
We continued on the medieval path to the left, until the river Inn and the mountains. The modern buildings of the congress centre, to the North, are worth a view, and if it had been sunny we would have definitely taken the cable car up the mountain.
Coming back to the city centre, we had a look at the St. James’ Cathedral (Jakob in German), a splendid example of the 18th century Baroque style.
What we really loved was the Hofkirche, the Court Church adjacent to the Hofburg (entrance together with the Tyrolean State Museum, 5 euros). It is the memorial to Emperor Maximilian I, built in 1553 in Renaissance style: the enormous cenotaph (which does not actually contain the body of Maximilian I) occupies the center of the nave, while the sides are crowded by 28 bronze statues of ancestors, relatives and heroes that the emperor himself valued as important. The audio-guide is well done and explains in detail the characters and the innovative molding techniques developed by Dürer. A true must-see!
Salzburg
The city center is divided by the river Salz, although the true old town is located on the west side, under the imposing fortress of Hohensalzburg. A very rich and ancient city, it was ruled for centuries by prince-bishops, who consequently built 44 catholic churches and left only 3 protestant ones standing (and their main entrance could not face the street).
A very quick sightseeing tour by Panorama Tours gave us an introduction and showed us some sights outside of the city centre: Mirabell palace, one of the Mozart houses, the Leopoldskron Palace… But the real attraction is the old town, where a guided tour would be mostly interesting.
The shopping street of Getriedegasse shows terrifying price tags and an endless sequence of identical souvenirs, but just raise your eyes to be enchanted by the wrought-iron shop signs, as elaborate and golden as possible. The hidden courtyards by the sides sell much pretties souvenirs and are much more fun to photograph.
After wandering around the main and enormous cathedrals, we decided to take the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress (8 euros for the two ways ticket, without the museum ticket). Unless you are into history, a walk around the fortress will do: the view from the walls is stunning, and we were lucky enough to catch the last warm afternoon rays. It is an extremely complicated citadel, developed over centuries, with fascinating additions and changes that result in random windows in the walls, arches that don’t match, angles that don’t fit… It must be terribly crowded during the summer, but we had enough time to wander and wonder about how it must have been to live there.
Our plan for the evening involved finding some food and squeeze into one of the Jazz Festival concerts that had been sold out or overbooked. We gave a shot to Afro Café and we hit it: somebody called to cancel their reservation the moment we came through the door! Excellent and savoury food, unusual wine from Africa and South America, and the company of a Nigerian-German girl-singer plus boy-guitarist: such an enjoyable and unexpected night.
To catch up on the lost Austrians, before heading home we stopped by the Augustiner Brau, the real experience for beer drinkers! Very wide halls (for smokers and non-smokers), crowded with tables, are connected by a corridor lined with counters of traditional food, shelves of stone mugs and a simple bar of beer barrels: grab some food, get your mug filled with beer, head to a table and enjoy! The atmosphere is relaxed and jolly, with both locals and travellers filling the halls and the outside garden. Did I mention it is a monastery?
Our last attraction, for the late Sunday morning, was the M32, the modern art museum built on top of a side hill. If the view from the Fortress is magnificent, the view from the M32 is even more stunning, as it includes the imposing Fortress itself! Take the lift and have a cappuccino on the outside terrace, which is sunbathed during the morning: it is a very fun place for people-watching.
We finished our trip with a long five-hour drive home, very satisfied with our Austrian exploration.