Salzburg

Birthplace of Mozart and the home of The Sound of Music, Salzburg balances highbrow culture with an abundance of chilled-out bars and restaurants

- James Draven

“To many visitors, this city is all about The Sound of Music,” says my companion, British expat and Salzburg tour guide, Trudy, as we stroll through St Peter’s Cemetery.

“I’ve not seen it,” I tell her, and she looks at me with bewilderment. Trudy’s astonished to meet someone who’s never watched the 1965 classic, and further surprised that I’m much more interested in the cemetery’s catacombs — atmospheric early-Christian cave crypts, roughly hewn into the face of the Mönchsberg mountains that bisect the city — than I am with seeking out famous movie locations.

The graves here are particularly elaborate and ornate, and we’re strolling the grounds taking in the famous names: composer Haydn, opera singer Richard Mayr, and inventor of Salzburg’s famous Mozartkugel (Mozart Balls) confectionary, Paul Fürst, are all buried here.

“Here’s where the Von Trapp family hid from the Nazis in the film,” adds Trudy, who’s so used to hosting British tourists, for whom Salzburg is inextricably linked to Julie Andrews, that she forgets I have virtually no frame of reference.

The hills may be alive with the sound of music, but the locals would rather the city were remembered for legendary composer, Mozart, who was born and raised in Salzburg, and whose sister is also interred in this graveyard.

The child prodigy was baptised in the squat metal font that sits beneath the stunning ceiling frescoes of Salzburg Cathedral, just a five minute amble away, on the other side of the Salzach river.