1 Day in Salzburg with Kids

If you have 1 day in Salzburg with kids, this is the perfect trip to Salzburg with kids itinerary for you. Balancing travel choices to ensure kids have some fun too in Salzburg, the city of music. This post also covers some places you should totally stop by to try some Austrian delicacies.

How to reach
As part of our plan we started with Prague and drove to Salzburg via Cesky Krumlov which we did as a sort of day trip between Prague and Salzburg. For internal travel we decided to use public transport and not our car as parking is a challenge in Marketplatz, Residentplatz and Alstadt (old town). If you’re planning 1 day in Salzburg with kids, I highly recommend having a rental car even though you may not use it within the city.

Check out my 10 tips on Self Driving in Europe.

Recommended route:
Mozart Birthplace —> Strudels in Cafe Wurfelzucker (Cafe sugar cubes) —> Untersberg —> Lunch and Sightseeing at Hellbrunn palace and Trick fountains —> Dom Quartier cathedral —> Walk over the padlock or Love lock bridge —> Sacher torte cake at Sacher hotel —> Mirabell Palace and gardens –> Beer Garden

Detailed Itinerary for 1 day in Salzburg with kids

Start at Mozart’s birthplace
A must have in your trip to Salzburg with kids itinerary.
It’s a museum with a lot of history about Mozart, his life as a child prodigy, his family and life in those times. I recommend starting here as in the morning 9-10am my kids are usually happier with a full tummy and good night’s sleep, full of energy and not yet irritable due to fatigue. There is no guided tour here and the person at the ticket counter would let you know to download the Mozart birthplace museum app to read about and listen to details about each important exhibit.
Photography is not allowed in the museum.
What not to miss in the museum: Replica of Mozart’s piano he played, how they traveled in those times, music room where you can hear some of the masterpieces by Wolfgang AmadeusA Mozart, life in the 17th and 18th century.
How to reach:
We took OBus 4 from our hotel (Hotel Turnerwirth) and took a drop at Ferdinand-Hanusch-Platz
Opening Hours:
Daily: 9 am – 5.30 pm (last entry 5 pm)
July / August: 8.30 am – 7.00 pm (last entry 6.30 pm
Tickets:
Included in the Salzburg card. Euro 12 otherwise. Kids below 6yrs go free. You can check the museum website for more details.

Head to Cafe Wurfelzucker (Cafe Sugar Cubes), just a 1min walk from Mozart’s birthplace for some amazing strudel options. Of course it offers the best Apple Strudel in town, and you can try out some other options like Rhubarb Strudel etc. The best part of this cafe is actually its ambience and its location. Locatseating ed next to River Salzach, see if you can sit on the terrace (as that gets filled up) and also if you’re a group of 4-5 people or more, it could be a challenge. Even inside, next to a window is a great option.

Next stop is Untersberg
This is a fantastic viewpoint, 1,972mtrs above sea level. It’s a great vantage point for Alpine peaks and the habitation around. The best part about it is the cable car or gondola that takes you up to the peak. Kids are bound to love it. What I didn’t like: all the cable cars we have been in are smaller capsules which can at most house 4-8 people. So it’s a cozy little personal experience and not like this one that felt like we were riding in an overcrowded bus with breathtaking views around.
How to reach: From Mozart’s birthplace walk for about 200mtrs to Salzburg Rathaus where you can get the bus #25 to Grödig Gartenauer Platz. This is about 250mtrs or 3mints walk to Untersberg cable car ticket point.
Service hours of the cable car:
January, February: 9 am-4 pm (3:30 pm*)
March-June: 8:30 am-5 pm (4:30 pm*)
July-September: 8:30 am-5:30 pm (5:00 pm*)
October 1-27: 8:30 am-5 pm (4:30 pm*)
From Dec. 7: 9 am-4 pm (3:30 pm*)
Dec. 24: 9 am-noon*
*last ascent
Closed: April 1-12, Oct. 28-Dec. 6
Tickets:
Included in the Salzburg card. Euro 25 for adults otherwise and euro 15 for children (6 – 16yrs old). Kids below 6yrs go free. You can check this site for more details

Head to Hellbrunn Palace and Trick Fountains
If you had to choose just one more place in your trip to Salzburg with kids itinerary, it should be this.
This is enroute from Untersberg to Residenplatz (Dom Quartier and Salzburg Cathedral) and will be a super hit with the kids and adults alike so if possible don’t miss it.

A big challenge for me when travelling to Europe with kids, is to keep them interested and engaged in places I like to see and hence balance it with what they would love to do. Hellbrunn palace and trick fountains allows you to do just that. And this holds true even for my partner, who is not too interested in history etc. So more often than not, the museums bore him more than my kids.

Since we reached here at almost lunch time, we stopped at the park cafe and ate some good pasta, minestrone soup etc. We took tickets for the 2:40pm guided tour of the palace and truck fountains. This tour was included in our Salzburg card (can’t recommend it enough specially when travelling with kids).

How to reach:
Take the public transport bus 25 that stops at Schloss Helbrunn, from where its about a 10min walk to the palace and trick fountains.
Opening Hours:
July, August: 9am – 6pm
May, June, September: 9am – 5:30pm
April, October: 9am – 4:30pm
Tickets:
The guided tour of the trick fountains is included in Salzburg Card. Once you reach the palace, just book yourself in one of the tours. If you’re reaching around lunch time (as per this itinerary), you can plan to take the 2:40pm guided tour. Without a guided tour you will not be able to experience the trick fountains so don’t skip the guided tour.
Reaching here: take the public transport bus 25 that stops at Schloss Helbrunn.

Head next to Dom Quartier

Dom Quartier is a building which comprises of the residence quarters of the archbishop princes, St Peter’s museum and Dom Quartier Cathedral. One ticket allows an entry into the whole complex and visiting it while listening to the audio guide at least for some of the exhibits you like, will take about 1-2hrs which should be enough to keep the kids engaged. Do note, you don’t have to separately get the audio guides, they are complementary with the entrance tickets.
Lastly, the museum shop is the best place to pick up magnets and memorabilia and unlike in other places, it is also the cheapest in Salzburg (the touristy areas and shops).

What not to miss: Cathedral which has very beautiful stucco and baroque work, the huge organ in the cathedral, the paintings gallery that was commissioned to have some of the most meaningful and beautiful paintings (exhibit 21 on the audio guide), all the baroque architecture in the residence of archbishop princes.

How to reach:
From Schloss Hellbrunn, walk to the Salzburg Schloss Hellbrunn station to catch Bus25. Ride 12 stops to Salzburg Mozartsteg from where it is a 5min walk to Dom Quartier.
Opening Hours:
10am to 6pm (July, August); 5pm (other months)
Closed on Tuesday
Tickets:
Included in the Salzburg card. Euro 13 for adults and Euro 8 for children (6 – 16yrs old). Kids below 6yrs go free. There is also an option of a family pass
priced at Euro 27. You can check the Domquartier website for more details.

Padlock or the Love
Lock Bridge (Makarsteg) and Sacher Torte Cake

It’s a 7min (850mtrs) walk from DomQuartier. Lovely walk
along the Salzach river. When you cross over the bridge you land at the Sacher Hotel where you can take a break to try the best Sacher Torte Cake in the world. Definitely don’t miss it.

Second last stop is Mirabell Gardens

The place famous for Sound of Music Tours. After much research,
we decided to skip the Sound of Music tour as it was just about going around the place while singing some of the Sound of Music songs. Didn’t seem worth fitting in the schedule. The gardens are however pretty to just go and sit for a while in or roam around. There are fountains, beds of colourful flowers, ice cream carts to bring down the temperatures, if you’re there in the right season and time, you might also find a children’s choir singing various songs including the ones from Sound of music, small children’s playground and last but not the very least a dwarf garden)

To call it a day in Salzburg, you have to end it at a Beer Garden
Augustiner bräu – Kloster Mülln, with a spacious garden is an awesome option being one of the best breweries in town and located in a spacious garden so fun for kids too. Alternatively, if you’re headed forMunich, you could visit the famous Beer garden in Munich and head to Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant, near Mirabell Gardens for a hearty meal after a long day.