Austria by rail — Vienna, Hallstatt, Salzburg & Innsbruck

Four Austrian cities in three days by train — imperial Vienna, misty Hallstatt on its lake, Salzburg's old town, and Innsbruck's rainbow houses under the Alps.

Austria was the start of a bigger summer journey. We flew in from Helsinki and gave ourselves three unhurried days to move west across the country by train — Vienna, then Hallstatt, then Salzburg, and finally Innsbruck before the Alps handed us over to Switzerland. It was a city-hop, but a scenic one, stitched together by ÖBB rails and lake ferries.

Vienna was the imperial opening. From The Hoxton near the Belvedere, we walked the palace gardens, cut through the Stadtpark, and drifted past the State Opera, the Albertina, the Hofburg and Heldenplatz, the Volksgarten, and down the Graben to Stephansdom. It is a city built to be walked slowly, with something grand around every corner and a coffee never far away.

The next morning we swapped the capital for the mountains. A train to Attnang-Puchheim, a connection into the Salzkammergut, and then the small station at Hallstatt where a little ferry carries you across the lake to the village itself. The day was grey and misty — and somehow that made it. Hallstatt is impossibly pretty even in the rain: pastel houses stacked against the cliffs, the church steeple over the water, and that famous postcard view appearing and disappearing in the cloud.

By evening we had crossed to Salzburg. We wandered Getreidegasse under its wrought-iron guild signs, and took in the Mirabell gardens and the old town laid out beneath the fortress. A simple kebab dinner and an easy night before the last Austrian leg.

Innsbruck was the send-off. The old town sits right under the Nordkette range, and the row of rainbow-coloured houses glowing above the turquoise Inn is one of those views that stops you mid-step. We walked Maria-Theresien-Straße past the Annasäule column, crossed the river bridges, and let the mountains do the talking before catching the long afternoon train onward through the Alps.

Three days, four cities, one country — an easy, rail-friendly introduction to Austria that never felt rushed despite how much ground it covered.

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