Bad Ischl

A spa town on the Traun at the centre of the Salzkammergut, home to the Kaiservilla, the summer residence of Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth. People have lived in the area since the Hallstatt culture, and the settlement is documented in a deed of 1262 as Iselen. Archduke Albert V put the local seat of the Salt Chamber at Wildenstein Castle in 1419, Frederick III granted market town privileges in 1466, and the first salt mine opened in 1563. It was a European Capital of Culture in 2024, the third Austrian city after Graz and Linz.