On Mönchsberg, Find Respite From the Salzburg Festival Fray

Any visitor to Salzburg has looked up and seen the Mönchsberg, the massive rock in the middle of this elegant Alpine city. Looming nearly 1,700 feet above the Salzburg Festival complex at its base and running the entire length of the Altstadt, or Old Town (almost a mile), this mini-mountain provides a literal and figurative backdrop for the world famous showcase for classical music, theater and opera, which has been going strong since 1920.

Tunnel Fun
For many festivalgoers, however, their main experience with the Mönchsberg is the network of tunnels through the mountain that link the theaters that lie beneath the cliff and lead to the subterranean parking garage or the Felsenreitschule, the Salzburg Festival’s most distinctive venue, a 17th-century imperial riding school hewed into the cliff. (At this summer’s festival, it will host staged opera productions of Richard Strauss’s “Salome” and Hans Werner Henze’s “The Bassarids.”)

While the bustling Altstadt — with its endless charms, and the less-hectic pedestrian zone across the river leading to the Mirabell Gardens — can easily sustain your interest, a climb out of the lowlands to the refreshing heights of the Mönchsberg is well worth your while.



Beyond the Hohensalzburg Fortress, a visit to which can easily take up half a day, the Mönchsberg offers a unique blend of nature, spectacular views, art and culinary attractions.

A 1926 performance at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg of “Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldoni.

Upward
There are several ways to scale the Mönchsberg, starting with the Festungsbahn, the century-old funicular that picks up, for a fee, behind the Petersfriedhof (St. Peter’s cemetery), with its centuries-old gravestones, adorned with wrought iron crosses.

Before boarding, you can pick up some leavened provisions at the nearby Stiftsbäckerei St. Peter, Salzburg’s oldest bakery, whose wood oven has been baking crispy sourdough bread since the 12th century. The entrance, down a few steps, can be difficult to spot. Just look for the wooden flour mill, a contemporary replica of the medieval original.

For those who prefer to walk, a direct, if somewhat arduous, path up the Mönchsberg is back through the festival complex, via the Clemens-Holzmeister-Stiege, several steep flights of stairs at the end of the Toscaninihof, a small street adjacent to the Felsenreitschule named for the Italian conductor who enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the festival. On your ascent, you’ll pass the Stefan Zweig Center, an academic research institute for literature and art that houses an exhibit on the great Viennese-Jewish writer, who lived in Salzburg between 1919 and 1934.


The uphill struggle pays off once you’ve made it to the verdant wooded paths at the top. One could easily spend an afternoon here, exploring the shaded mountain paths, admiring the stately villas or relaxing on the benches at the western flank of the Mönchsberg that look out over the Alps.