Salzburg Entertainment

Salzburg is famous for its classical music scene, operas and theatres, so visitors looking for all-night partying and discos may not find many venues catering to their tastes.

Theatre and Music

The biggest of Salzburg's permanent theatres, Salzburg City Theatre, has been a home for the performing arts since long before Mozart. Today, its programme ranges from opera to operetta and from ballet to drama.

Attending a performance at the Salzburg Marionette Theatre is highly recommended.
The Baroque theatre, with its auditorium seating 350 visitors, is in itself worth seeing. This world-famous jewel is undoubtedly the leading theatre of its kind. The operas, operettas and ballets performed on the small stage by marionettes never fail to captivate audiences. Once the audience has been drawn into this fascinating world, they soon forget that the characters are puppets on strings and imagine they are seeing life-size performers.

The Salzburg Festival presents performances of opera, plays and concerts of the highest artistic standards, over a period of five to six weeks each summer. Conductors, stage-directors, orchestras, singers, actors and virtuoso musicians of world fame can be seen and heard in the city in July and August.

For those with a more contemporary taste in music, there are also rock, pop and jazz concerts. Such concerts take place at the Jazzit and the Rockhouse, with larger concerts hosted by the Salzburg Arena.

Shopping

There are many shopping centres in Salzburg. The most interesting and visually striking is the Europark at Europastrasse 1.

The truly unique shopping experience in Salzburg however is in the Old Town, with all its shops and boutiques. Jewellery, handicrafts, designer wear, high fashion, books, music and souvenirs there is a wealth of products for sale along the beautiful, narrow lanes and the quaint squares in Salzburgs historic centre. The Getreidegasse is the most renowned shopping street here, but there are many others as well, and in between all the shops and boutiques, there are plenty of places offering food and drink.

An assortment of Mozart souvenirs can be found in nearly every souvenir shop in the city, ranging from Mozart plates and Mozart ties to Mozart watches! Those who wish to take a musical memento of the Salzburg Festival back home can purchase CDs of the latest festival performances and performers, available in good music shops throughout the city.

Dont buy Mozart balls in the city centre. No doubt you will encounter the sweet all over the Old Town, normally of the major brand Mirabell. However, one thing is certain: Mozart balls sold from market stalls or in souvenir shops are almost always horribly overpriced. Try to wait until you get to a supermarket, the airport or order your Mozartkugeln online.

The street markets offer a different kind of shopping. The Green Market on University Square and the adjacent Wiener Philharmoniker Gasse is open daily, except for Sundays, and features an abundance of meat, fruit, vegetables, seafood, fish, bread and cheeses, in addition to flowers and local handicraft products. Every Thursday morning, there is a lively and popular market in front of St Andrews Church, called the Schranne, which is well worth a visit.

Eating Out

Salzburg is said to have the highest number of Michelin star cooks per capita this is certainly tourism related and mostly due to the Salzburg Festival. To find reasonably priced, traditional-style food, you will have to look for pubs called Gasthaus rather than the more exclusive restaurants. You will get the best value for money in terms of food on the right side of the Salzach River, where the Schloss Mirabell Castle is situated. Restaurants in the Old Town often serve high-end meals, but they tend to be super-expensive.

The Mirabell Castle side of the Salzach River is generally a good area to look if you are looking for traditional food with good value for money. Wander up Linzergasse and try the area around Gablerbru.

In Austria, all restaurants are required to have a menu on show outside of the premises or by the entrance. This will also display all prices. It might be in German, but almost all restaurants in Salzburg have English menus as well.

Particularly in the summer, you will have the option between very busy places and very, very busy places. Stick with the former, where chances of being served by a waiter who is too stressed to give satisfactory service are lower, as sometimes happens in the touristy locations.

Local Cuisine

Austrian cuisine is known first and foremost in the rest of the world for its pastries and sweets. In recent times, a new regional cuisine has also developed, centred on local produce and employing modern and easy methods of preparation.

Kasnockerln (cheese dumplings) are a popular meal, as are freshwater fish, particularly trout, served in various ways. Salzburger nockerln (a meringue-like dish) is a well-known local dessert.