Salzburg Things to Do

Salzburg likes to dress up over Silvester, Austrian New Year; its cobbled streets roar into life with a series of concerts and gala dinners, firework displays, and street parties among its Baroque edifices. Stores close at around 4pm on New Year’s Eve and reopen only on January 2; most of Salzburg’s street parties are accessible on foot.

Salzburg sits prettily on the river Salzach, hemmed in by the bluff slopes of Kapuzinerberg Mountain. At Christmas, Austria’s most romantic city dons its glad-rags and puts on a splendid show.

Owing to its status as the birthplace of the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Salzburg has been playing host to influential classical music and drama festivals for more than a century. One of the most prestigious of these is the annual Salzburg Festival. With a history that dates to 1920 (it launched with a play directed by no less a talent than Max Reinhardt), this festival is one of the premier showcases of opera, drama and classical music in Austria.

Easily the biggest annual event in the capital of the westernmost state in Austria, the Bregenzer Festspiele, or Bregenz Festival, features performances of famous operas on the largest floating stage in the world. You may have noticed this iconic structure in 2008’s Quantum of Solace. In any case, it is truly a sight to behold.

If Vienna was not beautiful enough on its own merits, take it to a new level with the classy and wondrous Spanische Hofreitschule, better known as the Spanish Riding School. Perhaps the world’s oldest equestrian academy in the world, this 400+ year old school has become not just a staple of the Viennese high-society, but an important stop for anybody who appreciates the elegance of the horse riding art form.

For those of you who are not familiar with the occasion, St. Philip’s Night, or “Philippinacht” is one of the more interesting traditions in Europe. It occurs the night of April 30 in Austria in celebration of the apostle Philip, the patron saint of order. That night, the young men of the villages stroll along the streets picking up anything and everything considered to be not be kept properly or untidy and brings them to a collection point usually formed by the nearest church.