‘More than 180 events are planned, exploring crafts, culture and art’

Bad Ischl and the Salzkammergut, Austria

In 2024, the European Union is flexing its definition of “Capital of Culture”. Since the scheme started in 1985 the title has been bestowed on various cities; this year, though, it has been awarded to a wider rural region.

The Bad Ischl and the Salzkammergut Capital of Culture comprises 23 communities in Austria’s historic salt-mining heartland, a place where lakes glisten, mountains rise, forests flourish and Habsburg emperors once liked to hang out. Franz Joseph took holidays here, and it was in Bad Ischl’s Kaiservilla, in July 1914, that he declared war on Serbia, precipitating the First World War.

That was then. Now, 110 years on, the spa town of Bad Ischl – the designation’s headliner – plus a cluster of idyllic alpine villages will showcase the region’s heritage. As rural areas across the continent struggle to compete with the lure of cities, the Salzkammergut points to its creative side.

More than 180 events are planned, exploring crafts and culture, traditional and contemporary art, the history of travel, diversity and sustainability; there is a European Theatre Festival, a Big Green Project, the Great Space Walk and Salzkammerqueer. Meanwhile, a “7,000 Years of Salt” app puts millennia of mining into context, floating platforms on Traunsee Lake challenge perspectives, and the Regional Express offers an acoustic-visual immersion by train.

Buy a KulturCard (£42) for discounts of up to 50 per cent at museums, concerts and exhibitions.

How to do it

Exodus Adventure Travels (0203 553 9150; exodus.co.uk) offers a six-day selfguided Cycling the Lakes and Rivers of the Salzkammergut trip from £1,079pp, including B&B accommodation and bike hire; excludes flights.

Hubertushof (00 43 6132 24445; hubertushof.co.at) is a historic four-star hotel in Bad Ischl, right by the Kaiservilla, with B&B doubles from £153.

Sarah Baxter is a travel writer and author who was born in Norfolk.

jCycle beside the lakes and rivers of the Salzkammergut, in Austria’s salt-mining heartland