Places to Visit in Austria in Summer: An 8-Day Road Trip

Austria’s summer season runs from late April to the first days of November, and the road trip below covers five regions in eight days: Innsbruck, Osttirol, Carinthia, the Schladming-Dachstein Naturpark Sölktäler and Salzburg. Almost everything that makes this itinerary worth doing has a closing date. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road shuts for the winter, the Eisriesenwelt ice cave runs 1 May to 1 November, Schloss Hellbrunn’s water games run 28 March to 1 November, and the Nordkette’s summer season ends on 1 November. This guide gives the route day by day, with the 2026 season dates, tolls and ticket prices for each stop.

I went on this trip as a guest of the Visit Austria tourism board. As always in a collaboration like this one, I was free to write whatever I wanted and every opinion here is my own.

My first trip to the country had been in winter, so I wanted to know what summer in Austria was like. I knew hiking replaced skiing and not much else. The answer turned out to be taverns serving typical Austrian food, shops selling clothes people genuinely wear, and cable cars up green mountains. Credit for the route goes to Katrin from the Austrian tourism board in Brussels, who put it together; all I had to do was follow it.

We changed hotel every night, which is not for everyone. Treat the itinerary as a menu if you would rather go slowly: take one region, stay a week, and come back for the others.

When the Austrian summer season opens and closes

Austrian mountain attractions run on published seasons, and several of the stops on this route are shut for half the year. The 2026 windows for every timed attraction on the itinerary are set out below.

Two of those matter more than the rest. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road is the only way to drive to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, where day 3 of this itinerary starts, and it is gated shut through the winter. The Eisriesenwelt closes on 1 November and does not reopen until May. Book the trip between late May and mid-October and everything on this page is open at once.

Day 1: Innsbruck

Day 1 is Innsbruck, which gives you an Old Town on foot in the afternoon and a mountain top by cable car before dinner. No other Austrian city puts the two that close together.

A walk through the Old Town

Innsbruck’s Old Town holds most of the city’s sights inside about fifteen minutes’ walking, which is why a first afternoon here works. I arrived by train from Vienna, where I had spent two days taking waltz classes and working through the museums, and met Katrin from Visit Austria and fellow Belgian bloggers Bart from VetexBart and Bruno from Reisreporter.

The city sits in a valley with mountains on every side, and the centre is made of painted houses that look better every time the sun moves. On a Sunday the streets are quiet enough to feel like yours. We walked the Maria-Theresien-Strasse from the Triumphpforte, past the Breakfast Club where I had eaten earlier while waiting for the others, and into the car-free zone around St Anne’s Column, which reads more like a village square than a shopping street. From there came the pink Spitalskirche and then the Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, which holds the Stadtturm and the Goldenes Dachl, the Golden Roof. You can climb the Stadtturm for a view down over the Old Town; we ran out of time, and it is the first thing on my list for next time.

The Breakfast Club has since moved along the street to Maria-Theresien-Strasse 49a at the Landhausplatz and opens daily from 07:30 to 16:00, so it still works as a late breakfast before a mountain day.

Tip: the Innsbruck City Card covers 22 museums and attractions, one return trip on the Nordkettenbahnen and the Patscherkofelbahn, city public transport, the hop-on hop-off Sightseer, the Swarovski shuttle and three hours of bike hire. In 2026 it costs €69 (about $80, £59) for 24 hours, €79 for 48 hours and €89 for 72 hours, with children at half price. You can find more details of what is included and buy your card here, or buy direct from the Innsbruck Card shop.

For more on the city, see our guide to things to do in Innsbruck. If you would rather be shown around, this group tour covers the highlights, and you can also book a private guide.

Up the Nordkette

The Nordkettenbahnen take you from the centre of Innsbruck to about 2,300 m (7,546 ft) in roughly 20 minutes, which is the fastest ascent from a European city centre to a proper mountain top. The Hungerburg funicular station where the ride starts is a short walk from the Old Town and was designed by Zaha Hadid. There are three stops above it: the Alpine Zoo, the Seegrube restaurant, and Hafelekar at the top.

We went all the way, and it was the first of many moments on this trip when I had to argue with my fear of heights. I do not like cable cars, and a large sturdy one is still a cable car. Then you walk out at the top and get a 360-degree view: Innsbruck laid out below with its airport and the Europabrücke, the bridge people bungee jump from, on one side, and nothing but mountains on the other. There was still snow up there in June.

Prices depend on which sections you ride. In 2026 an adult return from the centre to Hafelekar is €56.00 (about $65, £48), a return to the Seegrube is €48.90, and a return to Hungerburg alone is €14.00. That makes the €69 Innsbruck City Card pay for itself with the cable car plus one museum. Hiking down from the Seegrube instead of riding back is the other way to cut the cost. The summer season runs 25 April to 1 November 2026, with the Hungerburgbahn from 07:15, the Seegrubenbahn from 08:30 and the Hafelekarbahn from 09:00.

You can book a round trip here, and if you want to see the weather before you commit, the Nordkette webcams update through the day.

A quick fact for anyone who assumes summer means no snow: you can ski all year on the Hintertux Glacier, and resorts like Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis run their lifts into early April.

Where we ate and slept in Innsbruck

We ended the day at aDLERS, the tallest hotel in Innsbruck at 12 floors, with a restaurant on the top one. The terrace looks across from the Bergisel ski jump, another Zaha Hadid design, to the airport, and we watched two planes land over a salad the size of a shrub, the catch of the day and a chocolate dessert.

The Bergisel ski jump itself is worth an hour if you have one. It opens daily 09:00 to 18:00 from June to October and Wednesday to Monday 09:00 to 17:00 from November to May, closed on Tuesdays in winter.

I slept at the NALA Individuellhotel, a small design hotel with a good breakfast buffet, and left Innsbruck knowing an afternoon had not been enough. If you want the same room, check dates and rates for the NALA.

Day 2: Matrei in Osttirol

Day 2 leaves the city for the Hohe Tauern National Park in Osttirol, with a ranger-led valley walk, dumplings at the Matreier Tauernhaus and cheese bought where it is made. This is the day the trip stops being urban.

Hiking the Hohe Tauern National Park

The Hohe Tauern National Park is open all year and free to enter, which makes it the cheapest big day on this itinerary. We parked at the Matreier Tauernhaus in Innergschlöss and met park ranger Emmanuel and Eva from the Osttirol tourism board, who walked us up the valley.

This was a warm-up for the days that followed and the start of a lot of summer hiking in Austria for me. Emmanuel spent the walk looking upwards for birds of prey, and we found vultures through his binoculars. The cows were easier: they lie about in the fields along the road up to the park entrance.

Where there are cows there are usually people, so a small stone church in the middle of it was a surprise. The chapel in the Gschlößtal was built by the valley’s farmers from 1688. The Archbishopric of Salzburg had doubts about a chapel out there and asked the Archpriest of Gmünd in Carinthia for an opinion; he disapproved, complaining in particular about the farmers’ illegitimate children, and Salzburg forbade the building. The letters took so long to arrive that the farmers had nearly finished it, and its popularity eventually forced consent. The original stood in an avalanche path and was destroyed twice, so in 1870 it was moved onto a large rock whose natural cave was widened into a stone vault. The licence came in 1880 and the chapel was renovated and re-consecrated in 1970.

Rangers can be booked to guide a hike from July to September, and to lead snowshoe walks from mid-December to Easter. Walking the park unguided is free and always possible.

Lunch, and cheese for dinner

The Matreier Tauernhaus at Tauer 22 is a hotel as well as a lunch stop, and I ordered dumplings there. Austrians roll a great many things into balls: my spinach dumpling was excellent and the cheese one defeated me. You can check prices at the Matreier Tauernhaus if you want to stay rather than just eat, and there are alpine huts across the park that take guests from mid-June to September.

Round the corner is the Schaukäserei, a dairy with a good story. It was a cheese factory until 1937, when the owner handed the building to a bank on the condition that it return to cheese if the region ever needed it again. A local association took that up in 2014 and reopened it. It processes around 300,000 litres of milk between May and September, selling to visitors, to a local market hall and to restaurants. The cheesemaker, Mathias Wibmer, holds the title of Molkereimeister, the highest qualification for the trade, which only became obtainable again through formal training in 2013. All the milk comes from local farmers who are paid a fixed price above what competitors pay, and because both the dairy and the farmers belong to the same association, both have a say in how it is run and a share in the profits.

We spent the evening at Hotel Outside in Matrei, where the chef taught us to make ravioli before cooking us a long dinner, and where I later found out how well he sings. Our post on the places we stayed on this trip covers that evening properly, and you can check dates and rates for Hotel Outside.

Day 3: Heiligenblut and the Grossglockner

Day 3 is the expensive day and the one people remember: the Grossglockner High Alpine Road up to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, then the first section of the Alpe-Adria-Trail past the Pasterze glacier. Both halves of it are seasonal.

Driving the Grossglockner High Alpine Road

The Grossglockner High Alpine Road is a seasonal toll road and it is the only driving route to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, where this day’s hike starts. In 2026 it opened on 25 April and runs until early November, after which it is closed by snow. Daily access is 06:00 to 20:00 until 31 May, 05:30 to 21:00 from 1 June to 31 August, and 06:00 to 19:30 from 1 September, with the last entry 45 minutes before the night gate.

A car day ticket costs €42 (about $49, £36) in 2026, a motorbike €31 and a motorhome over 3.5 tonnes €50, with children under 15 travelling free. That is the single largest ticket on this itinerary, so build the day around it rather than crossing the pass twice.

Hiking the Alpe-Adria-Trail past the Pasterze

The Alpe-Adria-Trail runs 750 km (466 mi) through Austria, Italy and Slovenia, and we walked only its first section, starting at the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe. For anyone with a fear of heights the beginning is the worst of it: a narrow staircase cut into the mountainside. What softens it is the view, straight across at the Grossglockner, Austria’s highest mountain at 3,798 m (12,461 ft), and at the Pasterze, the largest glacier in the Eastern Alps.

The Pasterze is also the clearest thing on this route to show what is happening to the Alps. The Austrian Alpine Club has measured its length every year since 1879, and in 2022-23 it lost 203.5 m, the biggest single-year retreat in that whole record. NASA’s Earth Observatory reported in August 2026 that the last icefall joining the upper glacier to the lower one looked close to breaking. Standing at the bottom of that staircase with my knees still going, I was grateful for how small the place made me feel.

From the glacier the trail runs to the Sandersee, where we stopped for a snack while a school group played in water the colour of a swimming pool. They were the only other people we saw all day. We found marmots, cows, distant ibex and one very large white bull, which we walked around rather than past. A hill up and a hill down brought us to the Margeritzensee, and a stretch of forest brought us to a summer house, from where the path drops past the Leiterfall waterfall into the Möll valley. We cooled off inside the thick walls of the Briccius Chapel before walking the last stretch to the Briccius Sennerei Sattelalm for lunch, then half an hour more to the shuttle pick-up back to Heiligenblut.

At the start of summer farmers take their cows up to the high pastures and leave them there until late September. The descent back down is the Almabtrieb, a full-day event with decorated cows parading into the valley and a party at the farm. Do wear proper hiking gear on this trail, because the weather at 2,300 m changes faster than the forecast does.

The pilgrimage church of Heiligenblut

The Wallfahrtskirche Heiligenblut is a pilgrimage church built around a relic said to be a few drops of Christ’s blood, which is where the village’s name, Holy Blood, comes from. The Church of Saint Vincent is named for Vincent of Saragossa and holds the remains of Saint Briccius, whose chapel we had passed on the trail that morning.

The legend says the Danish prince Briccius was killed by an avalanche in the Möll valley carrying a small bottle of that blood, which was kept in the local church afterwards. Inside there is also a steel book listing everyone who has died in the surrounding mountains. The village has about 1,000 inhabitants, so nothing in it is more than a few minutes’ walk from anything else.

We ate a three-course local dinner on the terrace of the Kirchenwirt, looking down the valley, and slept at the Nationalpark Lodge Grossglockner in the centre of the village. You can check dates and rates for the Nationalpark Lodge Grossglockner, which also trades under its older name, Glocknerhof.

Day 4: Millstätter See

Day 4 trades mountains for a Carinthian lake, with a boat on the Millstätter See, lunch on a viewing terrace above it and a garnet mine in the afternoon. It is the easiest day on the itinerary and a useful one after the Grossglockner.

A boat on the lake

Millstätter See is a Carinthian lake ringed by forest and by the summer houses the Austrian nobility built, and the water is where you get a proper look at them. You can hire a pedalo or a slow motorboat, take a picnic on board, or stop at one of the picnic points along the shore. The tourism board sells packages that pair a boat with a picnic for two, and Michaela from the local board took us out.

Austrian summer without a lake day is a wasted trip, and the Carinthian lakes are the warmest in the country.

Lunch at the Sternenbalkon

The Sternenbalkon, the Balcony of Stars, is a small viewing platform that juts out over the mountainside above Millstätter See. It is the photograph everybody comes for, and the better lunch is at the little tavern a few metres away, whose terrace has much the same view with chairs.

We ate a wooden board of cold meats and cheese, a dish that turned up repeatedly on this trip because it is simple and it travels, and finished with Kaiserschmarrn, the shredded pancake that is Austria’s default dessert.

The Granatium in Radenthein

The Granatium in Radenthein is a museum about the garnet found in these mountains, and it lets you dig for your own. Garnets were a jewellery staple, went out of fashion, and have come back. The ticket covers the garnet museum, the special exhibition on magnesite mining in Radenthein, the mine tunnel, the prospecting ground and an audio guide.

Adult entry is €17 (about $20, £15) from April to October, children up to their sixth birthday go free and those up to 16 pay €10, and family cards run from €39 to €45. The opening calendar has gaps worth knowing: daily 09:00 to 18:00 in July, August and September, closed on Tuesdays in April to June and in October, and shut altogether in March and November. It is at Klammweg 10 in Radenthein.

We had a three-course dinner on the terrace of Hotel See-Villa and stayed the night; you can check dates and rates for Hotel See-Villa.

Day 5: Naturpark Sölktäler

Day 5 crosses from Carinthia into the Naturpark Sölktäler in the Schladming-Dachstein region, for a castle exhibition and an afternoon walk that ends at a farmer’s cabin. The night is spent in a working alpine hut.

Schloss Grosssölk

Schloss Grosssölk is a 14th-century castle in the Naturpark Sölktäler that now holds a permanent exhibition on how people lived in this region 200 years ago. When we went there was a temporary exhibition about wolves as well.

Behind it is the Sölker Jesuit Garden, planted with herbs, vegetables and flowers, which is where we had a snack before driving on.

Hiking the Mahdfeldalm

The Mahdfeldalm walk in the Schladming-Dachstein mountains is a half-day loop that ends at a farmer’s cabin, and it is the walk that taught me how Austrian mountain hospitality actually works. We had lunch first at the terrace of the Erzherzog Johann Hütte, at long picnic tables at the foot of the Sölkpass, and saved coffee for five minutes into the hike, at a hut with no electricity where the water is boiled on a gas ring one mug at a time.

The steep section after that ends at a farmer’s cabin, and outside it stood a hollowed tree trunk with cold mountain water running through it and drinks sitting in the water. If the farmer is home you pay him. If he is not, you put the money in a box by the door. It works, and in a country where you are carrying your own water uphill it is a genuinely useful institution.

On the way down we met the owner of the coffee hut, who turned out to be the farmer’s son. He stopped to chat, and then his car would not restart. Volkhard from the local tourism board stayed behind and got it going. Looking back up at the track that car had come along, over pointed rock we had needed hands for in places, I decided the driving was the more impressive feat.

We slept at the Kaltenbachalm, a working summer hut where farmers live through the season and hikers can stay, in a room above the cow stable.

Day 6: A sunrise hike and Ausseerland

Day 6 starts in the dark with a climb of just under two hours to watch the sun come up from a summit, then drives to Ausseerland for lunch by a lake and an afternoon underground. It is the hardest day of the eight.

Sunrise on the Hornfeldspitz

A sunrise hike in an Austrian summer means getting up in the dark at an hour that feels punitive, because the sun comes up early. After three hours of sleep, and none at all for me, Volkhard’s alarm went at an hour I would rather not write down, and we drove two minutes in the pitch black to the start of the trail.

The target was sunrise from the top of the Hornfeldspitz at 2,277 m (7,470 ft), a climb of just under two hours along a narrow rocky path that follows the spine of the mountain. I managed until about halfway, when the wind picked up and I started to be afraid of losing my balance. I stopped looking around, stopped taking photographs and pushed on. With the summit in sight I crouched down for a second, genuinely frightened, and Volkhard, who was ahead of me, took my hand and simply ran us both to the top.

Up there the wind was hard and the ground steep. I sat down and my body seemed to shut off. Soaked through with sweat, more from fear than heat, I changed shirts and curled up under the windproof blanket Volkhard handed me, and all I could think about was that we still had to go back down. I drank the tea we had carried up, ate a biscuit, and cried a bit as my breathing slowed. Watching a sunrise from somewhere like that had been on my list for years and I was glad I had not given up. I will also admit that when cloud came in and hid the actual sunrise, part of me was relieved, because it meant I did not have to walk to the very edge and look out.

Volkhard took my hand again for the worst of the descent and let go when I steadied. Somewhere on the way down a feeling of having won arrived, and I stopped and took photographs at last. I could have got better shots up top if I had not been frightened, and what I got instead was worth more than the pictures. Physically the hike is not hard: in reasonable shape you will be fine up and down. The rest of it was mine to deal with.

Lunch at the Kohlröserlhütte

The Kohlröserlhütte is a large modern restaurant on the shore of the Ödensee near Bad Aussee, and it is where we met the former mayor of Bad Aussee, in the traditional outfit of the region, who talked us through both the clothes and the valley. We all ordered fish and then walked round the lake, which did nothing to work it off.

The sky was grey and the lake reflected everything anyway, so we spent about as long photographing it as walking it. The address is Ödensee 144, Bad Aussee.

Salzwelten Altaussee

The Salzwelten at Altaussee is a working salt mine you can tour, and it is the site where the Nazis hid looted artwork during the Second World War, the story told in the film The Monuments Men. Rain cancelled our planned walk around the Altausseer See and sent us underground instead, which turned out better.

The guided tour takes about 120 minutes and adult entry is €27 (about $31, £23). Hourly tours run 09:00 to 16:00 through the main season to 30 September 2026; from 1 October to 2 November tours go at 09:00, 11:00, 13:00 and 15:00, and the mine closes from 3 to 30 November 2026 before reopening for December. Special tours on the hidden-artwork story run in July and August.

We ate and slept at the Mondi-Holiday Seeblickhotel in Grundlsee; you can check dates and rates for the Seeblickhotel Grundlsee.

Day 7: Ausseerland to Salzburg

Day 7 links three lakes by boat and on foot, goes into the largest ice cave in the world, and ends with a first evening in Salzburg. Allow the full morning for the cave.

The Drei Seen Tour

The Drei Seen Tour links the Grundlsee, the Toplitzsee and the Kammersee, with a boat crossing in the middle and short walks between. We parked near the Toplitzsee and stepped carefully onto a flat wooden Plätte, which took us across, and from the far shore it is a few minutes’ walk to the Kammersee.

The Kammersee can only be reached that way or by a multi-day hike involving some unpleasant-looking descents, which is why it stays as empty as it does. If the weather is poor, as it was for us, there is a small cafe at the Toplitzsee boat departure point.

Eisriesenwelt, the largest ice cave in the world

The Eisriesenwelt above Werfen is the largest ice cave in the world, and getting into it is a day in itself. The cave entrance sits at 1,641 m (5,384 ft), and the route runs: park near the visitor centre at about 1,000 m, walk uphill for 20 minutes to the cable car, ride up to 1,575 m, and walk another 20 minutes uphill to the entrance. Allow around three hours in total. You can also walk the whole way up in about an hour and a half if you would rather; we did not.

The thing nobody tells you is the stairs. The route through the chambers is roughly 1,400 steps, half of them up and half back down, and it is not obvious from outside that a cave visit involves a climb. Your guide stops often to talk, so you never take them all at once. Inside it is below 0°C, so bring a jacket even in July. Photography inside is not allowed.

It was better than I expected, and I had low expectations. This is not a bit of ice in a hole. It is huge volumes of smooth, thick, milky ice pouring down the rock.

The 2026 season is daily from 1 May to 1 November, with the cash desk open 08:30 to 15:00, the cable car 08:45 to 15:20 and cave tours 09:30 to 15:45. A combination ticket covering the cable car and the cave tour costs €45.00 (about $52, £39) for an adult at the desk and €41.00 online, €32.00 and €30.00 for 15 to 18 year olds and €24.00 and €22.00 for children aged 5 to 14. Book online: it is cheaper and it saves queueing. The address is Eishöhlenstrasse 30, Werfen.

First walk around Salzburg

Salzburg reads clearest from above and from the river, which is what our local guide Sandor gave us in a short evening tour. Walking the bank of the Salzach and then climbing the Mönchsberg was the point at which I decided I liked the city, and I still would.

Paths run up the Mönchsberg, and the Mönchsberg lift saves you the climb: it goes up beside the Museum der Moderne and the m32 restaurant, rising 60 m in 30 seconds, and it runs every day of the year. A Museum der Moderne adult ticket is €15.00 (about $17, £13), or €17.00 including the lift. A Salzburg Card covers both.

Tip: the Salzburg Card gives one free entry to around 30 attractions, including Hohensalzburg Fortress, Mozart’s birthplace and Schloss Hellbrunn, plus city public transport, the fortress funicular, the Untersberg cable car, the Mönchsberg lift and a Salzach boat trip. In high season, 1 May to 31 October, it costs €24.00 (about $28, £21) for 24 hours, €32.00 for 48 and €37.00 for 72, with children aged 6 to 15 at half price. Hohensalzburg and Hellbrunn together already cost more than the 24-hour card, so it pays for itself on day one. You can find more details of what is included and buy your card here.

Across the river from the Mönchsberg is the Kapuzinerberg, another walkable hill with a church, an abbey and some wildlife on it, which we did not have time for. What we did have time for was the Augustiner Bräustübl, which claims to be Austria’s largest beer tavern. It has an indoor market hall of food stalls, and you may bring your own food as long as you buy a drink. Its two drinking halls total 5,000 m² (53,820 sq ft): one dark and heavy with wooden furniture and noise, one light and full of families on a Sunday. The light one is the old railway station hall, rebuilt here when the station it belonged to was demolished. Outside there is seating for 1,400 people under lines of trees that handle both sun and light rain. It opens every afternoon and evening all year except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

We had a short custom walking tour because our evening was short, but a group tour covers more. This city tour including Mozart’s House is the standard version.

Dinner was on the terrace of the Krimpelstätter, an Augustiner Braugasthof at Müllner Hauptstrasse 31 first recorded in 1548, where I had a chicken salad large enough to be a threat and Kaiserschmarrn afterwards. Check the day before you go: it opens Tuesday to Saturday from 11:00 and closes on Sunday and Monday.

I slept at the Motel One Salzburg-Mirabell, which is by the river in a quiet spot within walking distance of the Old Town and priced sensibly for a city this popular. You can check dates and rates for the Motel One Salzburg-Mirabell.

Day 8: Salzburg on foot and by bike

Day 8 stays in Salzburg: the fortress in the morning, then a rented bike out past the Sound of Music castle to the trick fountains at Hellbrunn. Everything on it is walkable or cyclable from the Old Town.

Hohensalzburg Fortress

Hohensalzburg Fortress sits on the Festungsberg above the city and is visible from almost everywhere in it. It dates from 1077 and was extended repeatedly over the following centuries, and one of its rooms runs a video that shows exactly which part went up when, which makes the rest of the visit make sense.

The rooms range from grandly decorated to a reminder that life was hard even for the people who owned a castle. The museum covers both how the residents lived and the history of Salzburg itself. My favourite part was none of that: it was walking the walls and looking out.

The fortress is open 365 days a year, 08:30 to 20:00 from May to September and 09:30 to 17:00 from October to April. Getting up is either the FestungsBahn funicular, which delivers you straight onto the walls, or the footpath. In 2026 an adult basic ticket with the funicular costs €15.50 (about $18, £13) and the all-inclusive ticket, which adds the Princes’ Rooms and the Magic Theatre, costs €19.20. Walking up brings those to €12.00 and €14.50, and both footpath tickets still include the ride back down. Children under 6 go free, two per adult. Inside there is an information point, a restaurant, a tavern, toilets and the inevitable shop. Current opening times and prices are here. If you have a Salzburg Card, entry is included.

Cycling to Schloss Leopoldskron

Salzburg is flat enough and small enough that a rental bike beats a bus, and the ride out to Hellbrunn takes in the Sound of Music locations on the way. Schloss Leopoldskron is the first stop on almost every Sound of Music tour: it played the exterior of the Von Trapp family home, and it is now a hotel that only guests can enter.

We stopped on the far side of the Leopoldskroner Weiher, the lake in the castle grounds, from where you get the Schloss with the fortress behind it in one frame. The real story of the Von Trapp family is not much like the film, and there is a book about it.

Lunch at the Gwandhaus

The Gwandhaus at Morzger Strasse 31 is the home of Gössl, the traditional-clothing company, and it was the most idyllic place we ate on the whole trip. We had meats, cheese, chutney and bread on the terrace while other people drank wine in the garden, and I began to wonder why Austria markets itself so hard on winter.

The Greißlerei that serves this food moved out for a while and has since returned to the Gwandhaus under a new operator, opening daily from 10:00 to 20:00. Practical details are on Gössl’s own Gwandhaus page.

Upstairs is the Gössl store, where Austrian traditional dress is made by hand and priced accordingly. I got to feel the lederhosen leather, which is thick and smooth at the same time. Sandor told me most men buy one pair in their life and then try not to change shape. There is a small museum in the store, and you can look into the workshop where the clothes are made and fitted to the buyer.

These are not costume-box clothes. Over eight days we saw people wearing traditional dress to do ordinary things, everywhere except the big cities. In the villages it is simply what people have on.

The water games at Schloss Hellbrunn

The trick fountains at Schloss Hellbrunn are a 17th-century practical joke that still works, and they are the single most enjoyable hour on this itinerary. Hellbrunn is a pleasure palace: nobody ever lived there, and it existed for hunting the grounds and for entertaining. Part of the garden is a route past water features that soak you when you are not expecting it, driven entirely by water pressure with no electricity anywhere, moving puppets around a stage and setting off sprayers exactly as they did 400 years ago.

The palace itself can be visited too, and gives a sense of how the household lived. The fountains can only be seen on a guided tour, because someone has to turn them on.

Schloss Hellbrunn is open daily from 28 March to 1 November 2026, with hours running 09:30 to 17:30 in spring and late autumn, to 18:30 in May, June and September, and to 19:00 in July and August. It is closed for the winter. A 2026 adult ticket is €16.50 (about $19, £14) and a child or pupil aged 4 to 18 pays €6.50, covering the trick fountains with an audio guide, the palace exhibition and the folk museum. Current opening times and ticket prices are here. We cycled from the city centre; you can also drive, or take a boat from the Old Town, and this boat ride is the usual one.

Then we returned the bikes, collected the luggage and flew home. Eight days, five regions, and one fear of heights substantially dented.

What eight days in Austria in summer costs

The fixed costs of this itinerary are the tolls and the big-ticket attractions, and the totals below are per adult at 2026 rates.

Two cards change that arithmetic. The Innsbruck City Card at €69 for 24 hours covers the Nordkette return plus 22 other attractions, so it wins the moment you add one museum. The Salzburg Card at €24.00 for 24 hours covers Hohensalzburg, Hellbrunn, the Mönchsberg lift and the transport between them, which is already more than double its price on a single busy day.

Tours and day trips in Austria

Guided walks, mountain tours and day trips across Austria change availability by the week, so the live listings below are more current than anything written into a page. Salzburg city tours, Sound of Music itineraries and Innsbruck mountain trips all appear here.

How to get to Austria

The airport you fly into should follow the region you are starting in, not the price. I flew Brussels to Vienna, took the train to Innsbruck and flew home from Salzburg, which is a sensible shape for a west-to-east road trip. Innsbruck has an airport but far fewer direct routes than Vienna, Salzburg or Munich, so you will usually be connecting.

Compare the options across airports before booking, because a cheap flight into the wrong end of the country costs you a day. Trip.com shows the combinations side by side. For trains and long-distance buses within Europe, Omio has the timetables and fares. Our hire car came from Sixt, and DiscoverCars compares more than 900 suppliers in one search, which is how you find out whether Sixt is the right answer this month.

Travel insurance for a summer trip to Austria

Mountain days are what make an Austrian summer worth insuring, because a twisted ankle at 2,300 m is a different problem from one in a city. Cancellation, illness and stolen or broken equipment are the rest of it.

Flexible cover you can start mid-trip is worth knowing about, and SafetyWing sells plans you can sign up for after you have already left. They were the first travel insurer to cover COVID, and when I caught it they reimbursed my costs without an argument.

Austria in summer FAQ

When is the best time of year to visit Austria for this itinerary? Between late May and mid-October, when every attraction on the route is open at once. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road opened on 25 April in 2026 and the Eisriesenwelt runs 1 May to 1 November, so those two dates set the outer limits.

Which places in Austria close in winter? The Grossglockner High Alpine Road, the Eisriesenwelt ice cave, Schloss Hellbrunn’s water games and the Granatium in Radenthein all shut for the winter or most of it. The Hohe Tauern National Park, Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Salzwelten at Altaussee stay open, and Altaussee closes only from 3 to 30 November 2026.

How many days do you need for a road trip in Austria? Eight days covers five regions at the pace described here, with a hotel change every night. Twelve to fourteen days is the comfortable version of the same route, and a week in one region is a better first trip if you dislike packing.

Is the Salzburg Card worth it? Yes, on any day with two paid attractions. Hohensalzburg all-inclusive with the funicular at €19.20 and Schloss Hellbrunn at €16.50 already exceed the €24.00 high-season 24-hour card, before the public transport and the Mönchsberg lift.

Can you see the Pasterze glacier without hiking? Yes. The Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe viewing terrace on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road looks straight at it, and you only need the road toll to get there.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

Five things I would tell anyone driving this route are listed below.

1. Plan the Grossglockner day around one toll, not two. A car day ticket is €42 in 2026, the road is gated overnight, and it is shut altogether from early November to late April, so crossing the pass twice doubles the most expensive ticket of the trip for nothing.
2. Expect 1,400 steps inside the Eisriesenwelt. Nobody warns you that a cave visit is a climb, and it caught our whole group out. Book the combination ticket online at €41.00 rather than €45.00 at the desk, and take a jacket for a cave that sits below freezing in July.
3. Drink from the tree trunk at a farmer’s cabin and leave the money in the box. High Austrian pastures keep cold drinks in hollowed logs with running water and an honesty box, which means you can carry less water uphill than you think.
4. Do the sunrise hike even if heights frighten you, and take someone’s hand. The Hornfeldspitz is not physically hard in reasonable shape; it was the exposure that beat me, and having Volkhard ahead of me was the difference between turning back and getting there.
5. Check which day the restaurant closes before you plan the evening. The Krimpelstätter in Salzburg shuts on Sundays and Mondays, and the Granatium in Radenthein closes on Tuesdays in spring and October, which are easy days to lose on a trip that moves every night.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her eight-day summer road trip through Tyrol, Osttirol, Carinthia, the Naturpark Sölktäler, Ausseerland and Salzburg. The team covers Austria for independent travellers, including the tours, the hotels, the city cards, the car hire and the travel insurance worth booking for a mountain summer, and updates this page when season dates, tolls and ticket prices change.