One of Europe's most popular tourist destinations is the enchanting city of Salzburg. This month we report on a dozen of its small hotels.
Salzburg is still alive with The Sound of Music. Subtle evidence of that fact is a yellowing check for $20 stuck under the glass at the reception desk of the fading Hotel Elefant in the town's Altstadt. It was written in 1981 by Maria von Trapp, the Julie Andrews character in the 1965 movie.
Salzburg has been popular with Americans for several decades. There was a Helen MacInnes book, Salzburg Connection, a Cold War spy thriller, and out of the book came a very bad movie of the same name, with cars chasing up and down the Hohensalzburg. Awful as it was, the movie at least gave us a look at a gorgeous little city.
But it was that Hollywood blockbuster of blockbusters, The Sound of Music, with Julie Andrews scampering through high Alpine Meadows, that forever changed life in Austria's third largest city.
Since the movie, Salzburg seemingly has been on everyone's European itinerary and the Sound of Music tour remains its number one tourist attraction.
But visitors are now a commodity with which Salzburg is over supplied. A tourism official once told Gemütlichkeit that an average of 700 tour buses flood the Altstadt with visitors each day during summer. Others arrive by rail, auto and air. Even in the dead of winter, in the first few days of January, the Getreidegasse bustles and one hears American everywhere.
But Salzburg is far more than a movie set. It has a rollicking past and great charm. One cannot fail to be intrigued, for example, by the central figure in its history; the lecherous, egotistical Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, the man who built Salzburg while fathering 15 children out of wedlock - with the same woman, to his credit. (Unfortunately, things didn't end well for Wolfie, he got on the wrong side of the Pope and spent the last five years of his life a prisoner in the Hohensalzburg fortress. You may want to visit the ostentatious tomb he designed for himself in the St. Sebastian cemetery.)
All that history, God-given beauty, Archbishop-given buildings - and of course one 'lil ol' movie - have been very good for Salzburg's hotel business, especially in the center of the city. Too good, maybe. This year we saw almost the same hotels we reviewed in 1992, which were the same ones we visited in 1988. Except for the pricey Radisson Altstadt, we found no new, interesting small hotels in the city's atmospheric heart.
Since this is where overnight visitors want to stay, and since there has been almost no new competition, this handful of little inns has been able to maintain high occupancy rates by simply keeping the doors open and the linen clean. Every hotel we inspected on the left bank of the Salzach - with the exception of the $250-per-night Altstadt and the Hotel Struber - is in need of refurbishment: the Elefant, the Weisse Taube, the Blaue Gans, even the Pension Wolf - though it is the best maintained of these four.
Each retains a degree of charm and all are acceptable lodgings. But at a time when small, family-operated hotels all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland are upgrading their facilities and services, it is disappointing to see tired public rooms, scuffed furnishings, and poorly-lit and equipped bathrooms in hotels which could and should be atmospheric little gems. Instead, they have the air of overused package tour hotels. All any of them have done in the past six years it seems is raise prices. In 1992, the least expensive double room at the Weisse Taube was 880 AS ($72), now it is 1,150 AS ($94), an increase of over 30%. The Elefant has jumped its cheapest double room from 1200 to 1480 AS ($98 to $121), an increase of 23%. The least expensive double at the Blaue Gans in 1992 was 700 AS ($57); it is now 1,180 AS ($96), a tidy increase of nearly 70%.
With two exceptions, the hotels we prefer are on the right bank. They are only a few minutes walk from the old center and offer a much better combination of value and quality. And remember, not all Salzburg's attraction are on the left bank. The Mirabell Gardens, Wolf Dietrich's tomb, and Mozart's house (not his birthplace) are on the other side of the river.
Left Bank Hotels
Hotel Altstadt
Those who seek the best accommodations will find them at the Altstadt Radisson SAS, open since 1992. Located between Rudolfskai, which fronts the river, and the pedestrian-only Judengasse, the hotel has entrances on both streets.
Its current site encompasses three ancient Salzburg addresses and the ground on which it stands was once the Hollbräu, an inn and brewery. A Jewish synagogue may also have stood on the site in the late 14th century and excavations for the current structure turned up parts of the wall which encircled the town in the 12th century.
Though corporately-owned, the Altstadt has made a conscious effort to keep the atmosphere of a small, intimate inner-city hotel. its entrance from Judengasse is via a simple arched doorway over which hangs the traditional, Salzburg decorative wrought iron sign. There is no uniformed doorman. The reception area is small but very elegant with a patterned granite tile floor, recessed lighting and a richly burnished dark wood check-in counter.
Standard doubles are on the small side but solidly appointed. In the "Superior" category, Number 408 retains the old rough beams of one of the earlier structures that occupied the site.
"Deluxe" rooms, such as Number 310, are simply larger with a separate sitting area.
On the Rudolfskai side of the building, the hotel's long, narrow Restaurant Symphony (also the breakfast room) is lined with windows which overlook the river about 60 feet below. A few of the restaurant's tables are in an adjoining glassed-in porch that hangs high above the Salzach.
At several times during the year the Altstadt offers a special three-nights-for-the-price-of-two arrangement that includes an upgrade to a deluxe room, one dinner, and a welcome cocktail. Prices start at $3,560 ($291) per person.
One of the hotel's packages, titled "Sissy, Following in the Steps of an Empress," offers a strange but intriguing option: for 40 AS ($33) you can have a cocktail with Duke Markus v. Habsburg-Lothringen, a great-great grandson of the Empress Elisabeth.
Though it may lack some of the old world charm of the famed Goldener Hirsch, the Altstadt is our first choice in Salzburg.
Daily Rates: Singles 1,900-4,400 AS ($155-$359), doubles 2,800-6,600 AS ($229-$539)
Contact: Hotel Altstadt A-5020 Salzburg, Austria, Rudolfskai 28/Judengasse 15, tel. +43/0662/858671-0, fax 848571-6/8, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Rating: Quality 17/20, Value 10/20
Hotel Elefant
If you've ever been to a once-popular but now-fading restaurant or bar whose walls are adorned with pictures signed by athletes and politicians from another era, you know what's going on at the Elefant. The $20 check written by Maria von Trapp displayed under-glass at the reception counter has that same feel.
This was once a lovely hotel, but that's been several years and a few hundred tour groups ago. Furnishings are of good quality, the reception area floor is that wonderful old herringbone hardwood pattern, there are some nice Oriental rugs, and many guestrooms have been wallpapered; the charm is still there, it just needs rescuing. A little refinishing, some painting, some new furniture, and updating the bathrooms would go a long way.
The other problem is the price; a small double with a tiny bath, like Number 303, rents for 1,705 AS ($139) in high season and 1,480 AS ($121) in low season. A larger double, Number 208, costs 2,165 AS ($176) in high season and 2,000 AS ($163) in low. These are poor values.
We were lukewarm on the Elefant in 1988 and again in 1992. It hasn't gotten any better, just more expensive.
Daily Rates: Single 950-1,150 ($78-$94) doubles 1,480-2,165 AS ($121-$177 )
Contact: Hotel Elefant Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 4, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. +41/0662/843397, fax 84 0109-28
Rating: Quality 9/20, Value 5/20
Weisse Taube
Management at the more country Weisse Taube is much friendlier and more helpful than at the Elefant, plus the prices are lower. But it, too, has a maintenance problem; like the Elefant, the time has come for a little urban renewal.
Daily Rates: Singles 760-1,040 AS ($62-$85), doubles 1,150 -2,100 AS ($94-$172)
Contact: Hotel Weisse Taube Kaigasse 9, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. 0662/84 24 04, fax. 0662/84 17 83, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Proprietor: Family Haubner-Wollner
Rating: Quality 7/20, Value 5/20
Hotel Blaue Gans
Some sections of this simple hotel, which is next door to the very grand Goldener Hirsch, have been upgraded within the last couple of years and they are the only acceptable accommodations in the house. The rest of the rooms, we were told, are slated for a redo in early 1999.
Among the newly refurbished guestrooms is Number 444, a fair-sized double which has a beamed ceiling, a skylight and rents for 1850 AS ($151). Number 440 is another above average-sized double but without the beams or skylight and rents for 1550 AS ($127). Number 330 is a single with a few old wood beams and costs 850 AS ($69).
Daily Rates: Singles 650-950 AS ($53-$78), doubles 1150-1950 AS ($94-$159).
Contact: Hotel Blaue Gans Getreidegasse 43, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. +43/0662/84 2491, fax 8424919
Rating: Quality 8/20, Value 6/20
Pension Wolf
In 1988 we picked the Wolf as the Salzburg hotel which offered the best combination of value and comfort. We even included it in our book, The 50 Best Country Inns and Small, City Hotels of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Were we to compile another such list, however, we could not include the Wolf. The rooms are rather Spartan, a bit small and seem to have changed little in the past six years. We still prefer it, however, to the Weisse Taube, Elefant, or Blaue Gans and its prices are much lower.
Daily Rates: Singles 680-990 AS ($56-$81), doubles 980-1750 AS ($80-$143).
Contact: Hotel Wolf Kaigasse 7, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. +43/0662/84 34 530, fax 8424234.
Rating: Quality 10/20, Value 10/20
Right Bank Hotels
Auersperg
This four-star hotel, which seems to attract mostly business travelers, is in a quasi residential district about a 10-15 minute walk from the Old Town.
Guestrooms are spacious and well-appointed in a traditional old-world style. Ask for one away from the street.
Parking is free, there is a new fitness room on the hotel's top floor with sauna, steam bath and roof terrace. Video players and fax machines are available in some rooms.
Daily Rates: Singles 1,090-1,490 AS ($89-$124), doubles 1,440-2,140 AS ($118-$175)
Contact: Hotel Auersperg A-5027 Salzburg, Auerspergstrasse 61, tel. +43/0662/88 9 44-0, fax 88 9 44-55, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Proprietor: Family Raschhofer
Rating: Quality 12/20, Value 10/20
Markus Sittikus
This hotel, in an attractive Baroque-style building just out of the right banks commercial area, has the great advantage of being a definite step up the quality ladder from most left bank hotels and also one step down in price. Guestrooms are more spacious and better maintained and furnished. The location is quiet and the welcome warm.
Daily Rates: Singles 690-850 AS ($56-$69), doubles 850-1,600 AS ($69-$131)
Contact: Markus Sittikus A-5020 Salzburg Markus-sittikus-Strasse 20, tel. +43/0662/87 1121-0, fax 87 1121-58, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Proprietor: Wolfgang Sigl
Rating: Quality 12/20, Value 14/20
Trumer Stube
A few readers have been less than enthusiastic about this cozy little hotel just over the river from the old town. Though time has taken a bit of a toll since our very positive 1992 review, based on what we saw in January, the Trumer Stube is still a better deal than any hotel in its category in the old town. In fact, while left bank hotels have raised their prices from 20% to 70%, the Trumer Stubes remain virtually the same as in 1992.
In addition, the Hirschbichlers are very pleasant hosts and are able to offer guests passes for on-street parking in the neighborhood. That's not to say there will always be a spot available, but at least there is the possibility of free parking - a convenience that doesn't exist across the river.
This is a simple hotel - don't expect large rooms or piles of fluffy white towels - but for one of its double rooms you'll pay $25 to $50 less per night than in similar accommodations just a 10-minute walk away.
Daily Rates: Singles 520-795 AS ($42-$65), doubles 880-1,295 AS ($72-$106)
Contact: Hotel Garni Trumer-Stube A-5020 Salzburg Bergstrasse 6, tel. +41/0662/87 46 66, fax 87 43 26, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Proprietor: Family Hirschbichler
Rating: Quality 10/20, Value 12/20
Hotel-Pension Jedermann
Easily the best value we found in Salzburg. In addition to 16 thoughtfully furnished guest rooms with hardwood floors, guests can surf the Internet in the hotel's cozy reception area and parking is free.
The disadvantage is the old town is a 15 to 20 minute walk away. By bus, however, it is only three or four minutes away.
Number 13, for example, is a fairly large double that rents for from 920 to 1,100 AS ($75-$90), depending on the season. There is also a two-bedroom apartment (shared bath) that ranges in price from 1,600 to 1,800 AS ($131-$147) and would work well for a family.
Proprietor Walter Gmachl is an ebullient sort you will immediately warm to.
Daily Rates: Singles 650-750 AS ($53-$61), doubles 920-1,110 AS ($75-$91)
Contact: Hotel-Pension Jedermann Rupertgasse 25, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. 0662/87 32 41-0, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Proprietor: Walter Gmachl
Rating: Quality 13/20, Value 15/20
Gasthof Auerhahn
A recent extensive refurbishment, including all new bathrooms, has raised this hotel near the rail station from a backpackers flop-stop to one that we can recommend to a broader audience.
Guest rooms are pleasantly furnished and bathrooms now have convenient, fully glassed-in showers. There is no lift, however.
Though very near the rail station, the Auerhahn is nonetheless a long walk from Salzburg's main tourist sights. Public transportation, however, is readily available.
The Auerhahn is also one of Salzburg's most popular restaurants, rating a red toque and 14 out of 20 rating points in Gault Millau (see below).
Daily Rates: Singles 520-580 AS ($42-$48), doubles 880-980 AS ($72-$80)
Contact: Gasthof Auerhahn A-5020 Salzburg, Bahnhofstrasse 15, tel. +41/0662/451052, fax 451052-3. Proprietor: Family Pongratz
Rating: Quality 10/20, Value 15/20
A Restaurant
Gasthof Auerhahn
In the U.S., the holidays are behind us on January 2nd. In Salzburg, however, as we recently discovered, there is one more to go, the Feast of the Epiphany. This year it was on January 5th, a holiday for all Austrians and a day to dress up and have a big lunch at a gemütlich restaurant.
Based on a tip, we headed for Gasthof Auerhahn and the rustic dining room that is a favorite of many Salzburgers. The cozy warmth of its rough-hewn wood walls and its carved beams overhead was perfect on a chilly day. So was the food.
Very thinly sliced smoked goose breast served with a light vinegar dressing was not only delicious but had the added advantage of justifying one's European trip. To wit: this is stuff we can't get at home.
Main courses of baked salmon in a lemony cream sauce and pan-fried perch (Zanderfilet) from an Austrian river left no doubt as to how every seat at the Auerhahn came to be occupied that Tuesday afternoon.
The salmon came with rice and a clutch of perfectly prepared winter vegetables, while alongside the perch were generous servings of buttery spinach, fresh green asparagus and small boiled potatoes.
There was no room for dessert, instead we sipped the last of the straw-colored wine from the province of Burgenland, south of Vienna.
Such was the level of our contentment that we purchased one of the dozen or so original watercolors by a local artist and on display at the Auerhahn.
Lunch or dinner for two will be about $60 without wine. One of Marcus Witek's paintings will cost between $250 and $400.
Gasthof Auerhahn A-5020 Salzburg, Bahnhofstrasse 15, tel. 0662/451052, fax 0662/451052-3.
Rating: Quality 15/20, Value 14/20
More Pubs & Grub
At Hotel-Restaurant Gablerbräu (Linzergasse 9, tel. 88965), on the right bank, not far from the Hotel Trumer Stube, the light Kaiser beer vom Fass (35 AS/$3 per half liter) goes down easily but the food is several notches below the Auerhahn. Mixed salads of shredded carrots, white radish, cucumber, and lettuce had a watery dressing. Rumpsteak (185 AS/$15) in a peppery sauce was a little tough but tasty and came with good Pommes Frites and green beans with bits of smoked ham.
Chunks of venison filet (158 AS/$13), in an almost black reduction sauce, and the pasty Semmelknödel that accompanied it, were less to our taste.
The beer is good, the price is right (dinner for two without beverages, 423 AS/$35), and you'll get enough to eat. No Gault Millau toques here, however.
Alter Fuchs (Linzergasse 47/49, tel. 882200) is a new, right bank, below-street-level, gathering spot for the under-40 crowd. For us it was an after-dinner stop for a drink and/or dessert. The suspicious sounding but luscious Liwanzen mit Powidl und Rumzwetschke (54 AS/$4.50) is a couple of puffy pancakes, with a smooth prune-based sauce, three or four stewed prunes, a shot of liquor - possibly rum - all topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. We split it.
This is a very lively spot jam-packed two nights running but friendly and under control. Highly recommended.
Near the Hotel Auersperg, Wegsheidstuben (Lasserstrasse 1, tel 874618) is one of those homey, corner beer joint/restaurants in a mostly residential part of town. It looked promising, but the food was a disappointment. Zwiebelrostbraten had had the salt shaker emptied into it and accompanying vegetables were canned. Enough said. To be avoided.
Not far from the Hotel Jedermann, Die Weisse (Rupertgasse 10, tel. 72246) is a rambling old brewpub specializing in wheat beer. It is an acquired taste.
Salzburg Information
Population: 147,000
Altitude: 114 meters/1,394 feet
Tourist Information
Auerspergstrasse 7, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. +41/662/889 87314, fax 889 8732, website: salzburg.info/en
Distance From
- Innsbruck: 177 Km/111 miles
- Munich: 140 Km/88 miles
- Vienna: 292 Km/183 miles
Parking in Salzburg
Many hotels are located on streets which limit vehicle access. As a visitor you can drive to hotels and pensions in the Altstadt at anytime, even on streets which restrict vehicles. You may creep along at 5 miles an hour among crowds of pedestrians but stay with it, as long as you're hotel-bound it's o.k. After check-in, however, you will need to find parking during your stay (forget the car except for excursions to the countryside). Some hotels provide permits for street parking but a public garage is the more likely solution. Most hotels have discount arrangements with these garages and you will pay approximately 120 AS ($10) per day. Hotels out of the center usually offer free parking.
Salzburg Card
For admission to virtually all Salzburg attractions and unlimited public transportation, the Salzburg Card is a worthwhile investment. A 24-hour card is 200 AS ($17), the 48-hour version is 270 AS ($22), and the 72-hour card costs 360 AS ($30). With it comes the Salzburg Guide which contains a city map and useful information.
A von Trapp Gets Scammed
While The Sound of Music has been a financial boon to Salzburg and Hollywood, Maria von Trapp, the Julie Andrews character, didn't make out so well.
In 1956, according to Julie Hirsch's book, The Sound of Music - The Making of America's Favorite Movie, Maria was approached by a German film producer who offered $10,000 for the rights to her story. Upon advice from a lawyer, Maria also asked for royalties and a share of the profits. The producer lied in telling her German film companies were forbidden by law from paying royalties to foreigners - she was by then an American citizen. A gullible Maria agreed to the deal and thus unknowingly signed away all the film rights to her story.
There was a German film version of the story but it was 20th Century Fox that created the blockbuster that might have made her a very wealthy woman.
After spending 30 years as a missionary in New Guinea, Maria von Trapp died in 1987 at the age of 82 and is buried next to her husband on their property in Vermont.
• Edelweiss is not an Austrian folk song. It was created by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein and it was the last they wrote together, as Hammerstein died in August 1960, nine months after the musical opened and five years before the movie.
• The entire interior of the von Trapp villa, including the ornate ballroom, was built and shot at a studio in Hollywood. The set was eventually donated to the Hollywood Museum. The abbey courtyard/cloister scenes, and the graveyard scenes where the von Trapps hid from the Nazis, were also filmed in Hollywood.
• Magicians though they were, the filmmakers couldn't quite reproduce those Alpine meadows and mountains. For that they had to go to Austria for the real thing.
February 1999
