I’m visiting Salzburg at the moment and I’m genuinely curious whether I’ve just had an unusually bad couple of days, or whether I’m misunderstanding some local etiquette.
I’ve enjoyed the city itself and some of the cultural events here, but I’ve had several interactions that have felt unexpectedly hostile.
Today it’s around 36°C and I was already feeling pretty unwell from the heat when I got on a bus towards the main station. I boarded through the rear door because that had been normal on other buses I’d used in Salzburg. The driver then shouted something very aggressively and quickly in German.
I only speak basic German, so I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I eventually realised that this particular bus required passengers to board at the front.
I had a valid Salzburg Card and also a guest mobility ticket, so I wasn’t trying to avoid paying. When I got off, I went to the front, showed the driver my card and apologised for not knowing I was supposed to board there. He was fine after that, but I found the initial reaction quite aggressive for what seemed like an obvious tourist mistake.
I’ve had another confusing bus experience here too, where I had pressed the stop button but couldn’t work out how to open the rear door. I asked people nearby for help and nobody would really explain it, so I ended up missing my stop.
I also stopped at a café recently and tried to pay for a small purchase by card. There was no sign or stated minimum card amount anywhere that I could see. The employee then told me that in Salzburg it is 'more polite' to pay cash for amounts under €10.
If there had been a clearly stated minimum, I simply wouldn’t have ordered there without cash. But being told afterwards that I had been impolite for trying to use a payment method they accepted felt quite strange. Is paying by card for small amounts actually considered rude here?
I also attended a performance at the festival yesterday. The performance itself was excellent, but the audience behaviour surprised me: phones going off, people talking, and quite a lot of movement during the applause and encores. There was also a lot of pushing past people while leaving during the applause and encore, I was sat in my seat to give the applause the performance deserved, and I ended up getting hurt in the process by someone trying to leave without so much as an apology.
I’ve recently spent time elsewhere in Austria and had a very different experience, so I’m wondering whether I’ve simply been unlucky here.
I’m an international visitor and I do genuinely try to understand local transport rules and etiquette rather than assuming everything works the way it does at home. I’m very happy to adjust when I know what the local expectations are.
So I’m curious to hear from people who live here: are any of these things normal Salzburg etiquette that I’m misunderstanding, or have I just had a particularly unfortunate couple of days?