The stone staircase climbing from the Nonntal district to Nonnberg Abbey is one of the oldest paths in Salzburg: built as a pilgrim's approach to the city's oldest nunnery, later filmed as the route Maria takes in The Sound of Music, still walked every day by people with different reasons for going up.
The Story
Nonnbergstiege descends from Nonnberg Abbey, the oldest continuously operating nunnery in the German-speaking world. Saint Rupert founded the abbey around 714 CE on the fortified hilltop at the Altstadt's southern edge, and the path connecting the abbey to the lower town has been in use, in some form, since then.
The name "Nonnbergstiege" is simply "the stair to the Nun's mountain," a descriptor that appeared on 19th-century city maps and has been used by locals ever since. The Austrian word "Stiege" means staircase; "Nonnberg" means nun's mountain. The naming predates the film association by at least a century.
The staircase's present form owes something to a fire. In 1423, the abbey burned and the access route was damaged. Reconstruction followed over subsequent decades, with work attributed to Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach's tenure in the 1490s using locally quarried limestone. What visitors climb today is that rebuilt and maintained medieval path, worn smooth by five centuries of footsteps.
In 1965 the staircase appeared in The Sound of Music. Maria climbs these stairs in the film, leaving the convent for the first time to go to the von Trapp household. The filming here was genuine rather than a studio approximation; the production used the actual stairs. The association has since become inseparable from how international visitors encounter the staircase, which is its own kind of historical layering: a medieval pilgrim's route now carrying film tourists on their way to the same destination.
Nonnberg Abbey is still an active Benedictine convent. The nuns sing Gregorian chant at daily offices. The church is open to visitors; the cloister is not.
Visiting
The Nonnbergstiege begins in the Nonntal district, accessed from Kaigasse at the southern edge of the Altstadt. It is always accessible, free, takes roughly ten minutes to climb. The stone is uneven; wear appropriate footwear. The view back down over the Nonntal rooftops is worth pausing for partway up. At the top, Nonnberg Abbey church is open daily (hours vary seasonally). Combine with Kaigasse for the approach and Alpine Vista Nonnberg for the view from the abbey platform. The Festungsgasse route to Hohensalzburg Fortress begins from the same southern Altstadt area.