The River Salzach in Salzburg by night.
Photo: Flickr user marco_ask
Salzburg’s W.A. Mozart Airport is a regional airport served by about 30 airlines. That means it is not nearly as busy as Frankfurt’s or Munich’s larger airports. And that means you may not find it cheap or easy to arrive in Salzburg by air.
A simple solution is to fly into Munich and continue to Salzburg by train. And that’s relatively easy to do.
For starters, there’s an S-Bahn station at the airport that runs directly to and from Munich’s main train station, the Hauptbahnhof (or Hbf). You access this station directly from the arrival hall on the ground floor.
From the Hauptbahnhof, trains run between Salzburg and Munich regularly, from early morning to late at night, about every hour. The trip takes about 2 hours and runs through scenic landscapes and along the shores of beautiful Lake Chiemsee.
What’s more, unless you’re travelling alone, you can save money by purchasing a Bayern ticket. Good for travel on local and regional trains, the Bayern ticket costs just €29 if purchased online or at a ticket machine (€31 if purchased at the ticket office). It covers a group of 2 to 5 adults travelling together and can be used from 9 a.m. to the following morning at 3 a.m. It’s good on the S-Bahn portion of the journey as well as the trip between the Hauptbahnhof to Salzburg.
The Bayern ticket can be used on all local trains (Interregio-Express, Regional-Express, Regionalbahn, S-Bahn) as well as the Münchner Verkehrsbund (MVV) and Verkehrsverbund Nürnberg (VGN), and the Augsburger Verkehrs- und Tarifverbundes (AVV). Be aware, though, that it is not valid for some of the trains between Salzburg and Munich; confirm that the train you select accepts it before departing Munich.
