The place with the best breakfast view of my life!

Mühlbach am Hochkönig is a small town near Salzburg, which is primarily known as a ski resort and more active during the winter months. However, some of the accomodations, particularly smaller apartments, are also open off-season. If you are willing to do a bit of driving, you can usually get a whole apartment with beautiful views for about the same price as a cheap, crummy hotel in the centre of Salzburg.

That is exactly what me and my boyfriend did when visiting Salzburg in May 2019, as we were a bit late with booking our accomodation and most of the good, affordable options were already full. We ended up staying at a great, clean, private and beautiful apartment, with friendly owners, free parking and a balcony with an absolutely gorgeous view of the mountains (link to the apartment on Booking.com here). Staying at the apartment had the added bonus of a functional kitchen, so we were also able to save some money by cooking our own breakfasts and dinners instead of eating out all the time. However, Mühlbach is pretty high up in the mountains and it was the first time I had ever seen a 27% slope on the road, so be careful when booking accomodation in Austria if you are on a roadtrip, as most of the country is located in the Alps. You should expect some unusually steep roads, so make sure you are up for it.

As the full name suggests, Mühlbach is located in the Hochkönig mountain group, from which the Hochkönig peak is the highest one (2181 m). It is quite close to all the major sights in the region, such as Hohenwerfen castle, Salzburg, Dachstein glacier, Grossglockner mountainn pass and also Hitler’s Eagle nest on the German side.

Mühlbach as seen from our balcony

Besides the skiing, the region is also a very popular hiking destination and we explored a bit the first evening we got there. We drove up as far as we could get and reached the ski slopes, where some people were still skiing, even though the ski resort was already closed. Since it was early May, there was still plenty of snow and we were a bit unprepared for that, so we did not stray far, but we did get to enjoy some incredible mountain views.

The mountain views

Like most of the Alpine towns, Mühlbach and the surrounding areas are very beautiful and I was glad we took a chance and booked the accomodation there, even though it was a bit farther from Salzburg than I initially imagined. On the last day we were surprised by fresh snow, which luckily did not stick on the road, as we no longer had winter tires and it could have been a problem. But, it was not, and everything looked extra charming in the snow, which made for a beautiful last breakfast before we left to visit the Hellbrunn palace.