Salzburg

Why go

A baroque city built on salt money — prince-archbishops rebuilt it in Italian style with mining revenue. Mozart — born here in 1756, and the festival that his city built around him from 1920. A fortress that was never taken — Hohensalzburg has stood above the town since 1077. The lakes and mountains — the Salzkammergut begins twenty minutes east.

The character

Salzburg was ruled by prince-archbishops — clerics with secular power — who controlled the salt trade from the Alps, and from 1587 Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau began rebuilding the town as an Italian baroque city, importing architects from Rome and demolishing much of the medieval fabric to do it. The result is a small city with the scale and vocabulary of a much grander one: domed churches, squares that open into each other, and a cathedral designed for a state occasion every week.

Mozart was born into that city in 1756 and left it as soon as he could, complaining about the archbishop; the festival that his birthplace founded in 1920 is now the reason Salzburg has an international identity at all. For six weeks each summer the population effectively doubles, the Grosses Festspielhaus and the cathedral square host the world's most expensive classical programme, and the town operates at a level far above its size. The rest of the year it is a quiet Austrian provincial capital with an extraordinary skyline and a fortress on the hill.

Places of character

Hohensalzburg fortress — take the funicular up, walk down; the whole basin and the Alps behind it from the ramparts. Salzburg Cathedral — the first fully baroque church north of the Alps; Mozart was baptised at the font. St Peter's Abbey and cemetery — arcaded graves against the cliff, with catacombs cut into the rock above. Mirabell gardens — laid out in 1690, geometric, and free; the Do-Re-Mi steps if that is your reference. Getreidegasse — the medieval shopping lane with wrought-iron guild signs, and Mozart's birthplace at number 9. Hallstatt and the Salzkammergut — the lake country an hour east, and the salt mines that paid for all of it.

The way to do it

Book festival tickets in the winter or come deliberately outside the season, when the same city costs half as much. Walk up to the fortress rather than taking the funicular both ways. Cross the river to the Neustadt for restaurants. And take one day out to the Salzkammergut — the salt is the reason the baroque exists here.

One perfect day

Coffee in a Getreidegasse courtyard before the shops open, then up to Hohensalzburg on the first funicular for the basin in morning light and the walk back down through the Nonnberg. The cathedral and St Peter's cemetery mid-morning, with the catacombs if they are open. Lunch of Bierfleisch at an abbey restaurant that has been serving since 803. Afternoon at the Mozart residence or the Museum der Moderne on the Mönchsberg, reached by lift through the rock. Mirabell gardens as the light softens. Concert at eight — there is always one, festival or not — and dinner afterwards across the river.

Grand hotels

Hotel Sacher Salzburg — on the Salzach with the old town across the water; the sister house to Vienna's. Schloss Fuschl — a fifteenth-century hunting castle on a lake twenty minutes east, for the Salzkammergut half of the trip.

When to go

Best expression: the Festival, late July to end of August, if music is the reason and tickets are secured. Consider: May and early June — everything open, gardens at their best, and hotel rates a third of festival prices. Avoid if possible: festival weeks without tickets, and November, when the city is grey between seasons.

The frame

Ideal stay 3 nights · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival by train from Munich or Vienna · Airport SZG, 4 km · Walkability excellent, compact and flat except the hills · Best without a car yes, except for the lakes