Schloss Fuschl

Snapshot

A 15th-century hunting lodge on a lake, 30 kilometres from Salzburg, now one of Austria’s most expensive hotels. The setting is extraordinary. The history deserves more than a passing mention.

The Story

Schloss Fuschl was built around 1450-1461 as a hunting lodge for the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, on a small peninsula reaching into the Fuschlsee. It spent most of its history as a seasonal retreat, valued for the lake and the surrounding forest.

In the 1930s the castle was seized from its Jewish owners by the Nazi regime and assigned as a summer residence to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister. Ribbentrop used it throughout the war years. He was tried at Nuremberg and hanged in 1946. After the war, US military forces used the property before it passed into private hands.

The Schörghuber family later developed it as a luxury hotel, and Rosewood Hotels completed a substantial renovation in 2024, adding 98 rooms and suites, six restaurants, a spa, and a private beach club. A small Empress Elisabeth museum within the grounds displays personal items from the Schörghuber collection. The hotel draws festival visitors above all: during the Salzburg Festival, rooms here are among the first to book out across the region.

Audrey Hepburn, Richard Nixon, and various heads of state have stayed here. The castle appears in the opening sequence of The Sound of Music. The lake setting, with forested slopes and Alpine peaks behind, is genuinely one of the most beautiful in the Salzkammergut.

Visiting

The castle operates as a Rosewood luxury hotel (schloss-fuschl-salzburg.rosewoodhotels.com). Restaurant visits are open to non-guests with a reservation. The Fuschlsee shoreline path allows a view of the exterior without entering hotel grounds. Approximately 20 minutes from Salzburg by car; no direct public transport. Rooms from around EUR 450 per night (check current rates before booking); books out early during Salzburg Festival.