The cemetery under the cliff
Graves with ornate ironwork at the foot of the rock — Salzburg's most photographed corner.
Pedro J Pacheco — CC BY-SA 3.0 at · Burkhard Mücke — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Clemens Stockner — CC BY-SA 4.0 · GFreihalter — CC BY-SA 4.0
A Benedictine abbey in old central Salzburg, founded in the seventh century and among the oldest working monasteries in the German-speaking world. What distinguishes it is that it never broke: monks have lived here for around thirteen hundred years without interruption, and it remains a working abbey rather than a historic building. The church is Romanesque in origin and was later clothed in baroque and rococo, so you see two layers of taste in one building. Its best-known feature is the cemetery: graves cut into the foot of the rock cliff beneath the fortress, with ornate ironwork markers and stone arcades, and catacombs hollowed into the rock above them, some going back to the earliest Christian centuries in the region. This cemetery is among the most photographed places in Salzburg. The abbey also holds a historic library, a museum of its holdings, and a restaurant said to be among the oldest still operating in Europe. The cemetery and church are normally free; the museum and catacombs are ticketed. This is a working place of worship: modest dress and silence.
Graves with ornate ironwork at the foot of the rock — Salzburg's most photographed corner.
Hollowed into the cliff itself, some from the earliest Christian centuries here.
Monks have lived here since the seventh century — a working abbey, not a relic.
Old central Salzburg, beneath the fortress
No, and this is a common confusion. The hiding scene was shot on a studio set modelled on this cemetery, not in it. The real cemetery is finer than the set, but anyone coming to find a film location will be disappointed — come for the place itself.
You are directly beneath the fortress in the heart of the old town: the cathedral and its museum are minutes away, along with the Residenz, and the funicular to Hohensalzburg starts nearby. The whole area is walkable and needs no transport.
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