A small park between the Salzburg Festival halls and the Mönchsberg cliff face. Named after conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. Home to Walk of Modern Art installations. Free and always open.
The Story
The Furtwänglerpark occupies a strip of ground that most visitors walk past without quite registering. It sits between two major presences: the Festival halls on one side, the vertical cliff face of the Mönchsberg on the other. Neither leaves much room, and the park is exactly what that implies: a narrow green corridor, a few trees, wooden benches, and enough open sky to decompress in after the density of the Altstadt.
It is named after Wilhelm Furtwängler, the conductor who returned to the Salzburg Festival repeatedly over decades and whose name carries more weight in this city than almost any other musician's. The naming is one of those small Salzburg gestures: a quiet strip of green as a permanent tribute to someone who stood on the stages a few metres away.
The park is also part of the Walk of Modern Art, Salzburg's open-air sculpture programme. The Gurken sculpture and the AEIOU pavilion are installed here, part of a collection scattered across the city that tends to surprise visitors who encounter it without knowing to look. The park works well as a five-minute pause before a festival performance, or as a route through to the Monchsberg Lift and the plateau above.
Visiting
- Hours: Always accessible
- Cost: Free
- Getting there: From Hofstallgasse or Universitatsplatz, between the Festival halls and the Mönchsberg cliff
- Time needed: 10-15 minutes
- Combine with: Gurken, AEIOU, Kollegienkirche, Monchsberg Lift