Untersberg

According to legend, Emperor Charlemagne sits sleeping inside the Untersberg, waiting for his resurrection. Every hundred years he wakes, and if ravens are still circling the mountain, he falls back asleep for another century. The mountain has been accumulating myths like this for millennia, and it's easy to understand why — the Untersberg is an enormous limestone massif rising to 1,973 metres directly on the Austrian-German border, visible from every point in Salzburg, dominating the southern horizon like something out of Tolkien.

The cable car, which began operations on April 27, 1961, climbs 1,320 metres in altitude from the base station in Grödig at 456 metres to the summit station at 1,776 metres. The ride takes about ten minutes and delivers you from a pastoral valley floor to genuine alpine terrain — bare rock, snow fields, and views that stretch across the Salzburg basin to the Bavarian Alps. On a clear day, you can see as far as the Großglockner, Austria's highest peak.

The Untersberg is riddled with caves — over 400 mapped entrances lead into a labyrinth of tunnels that remain largely unexplored. The mountain straddles the border between Austria and Germany, and you can hike from the summit station along the ridge and technically walk into Germany without seeing a border post or another person. The so-called Wild Hunt — a mythological procession of spectral hunters racing through the sky — is traditionally associated with the Untersberg in local folklore, believed to stem from Celtic rituals for appeasing the storm gods.

The summit plateau offers hiking trails of varying difficulty, from gentle walks along the ridge to serious alpine routes requiring proper equipment. In winter, the area becomes a snow-covered wonderland that feels entirely disconnected from the Baroque city below. The contrast is the point: Salzburg is a place where you can visit a cathedral in the morning and stand above the clouds by lunch.