Salzburg audio guide: the stories of its sights

Hohensalzburg Fortress held a prince-archbishop who hardly cared about it, and in the end it became his prison.

His name was Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, and he ruled Salzburg from 1587 to 1612. Building fortifications mattered little to him. He devoted himself above all to new buildings in the city below. Yet the fortress, the landmark of Salzburg, stands on the Festungsberg, the fortress hill, above the city. It is one of the largest castle complexes in Europe, and its origins reach back to the 11th century.

Wolf Dietrich gave it little attention, but it still became his fate. His successor had him held here as a prisoner. He stayed within these walls until the end of his life. Today the fortress draws more than a million visitors every year. It also houses the Salzburg Marionette Museum. In summer, castle staff in costume lead a special tour, taking you on a walk through the 16th century.

That was the very age in which Wolf Dietrich ruled.

Mirabell Palace in Salzburg was first named after a woman, and it was renamed on purpose, to wipe out the memory of the man who built it.

That man was Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Around 1606 he had a summer palace built outside the city walls of the time. He built it for Salome Alt, his beloved, or perhaps his secret wife. And he named it Altenau, after her. Wolf Dietrich was a devoted family man. He and Salome had 15 children, and he persuaded the Emperor to recognise them as lawful heirs and grant them noble rank.

Then came his fall. His nephew and successor, Markus Sittikus von Hohenems, soon drove Salome and the children out of the palace. To erase every trace of his predecessor, he gave the place a new name: Mirabell. Today the palace is part of the Salzburg UNESCO World Heritage site. Most of its rooms are used by the city administration. The gardens, though, have been open to everyone since 1854.

They include the Zwergerlgarten, the Dwarf Garden, which originally held 28 marble dwarves, and a historic hedge theatre. Both show off the baroque art of the place.

Seven children were born in one small flat in Salzburg, and only two of them grew up.

One of those two was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. That flat is in Mozart's birthplace, the Hagenauerhaus, a former residential building in the old town. Leopold Mozart rented the apartment on the third floor. It had a kitchen, a small cabinet, a living room, a bedroom and an office. Here his children came into the world, all seven of them. Only his daughter Maria Anna and his son Wolfgang Amadeus survived.

Several of Mozart's early works were still written in these rooms. Since 1880, the house has held a museum, set up by the Mozarteum Foundation in the former living quarters. The building is a protected monument. Today, the third floor shows Mozart's childhood violin, along with portraits, documents and early printed editions of his music. On the second floor stands the clavichord on which he composed The Magic Flute.

Every Saturday, the heart of old Salzburg was deliberately flooded.

And it was done to get the streets clean. This is the Getreidegasse, perhaps Salzburg's most famous historic lane. It was first mentioned in 1150, under the names Trabgasse and Traugasse. Today it is a busy shopping street in the pedestrian zone. But in earlier times, the area around the lane was flooded every Saturday, and on the eve of public holidays too.

The water came from the Almkanal, the canal that had been dammed up for the purpose. Then the maids joined in. With the help of the flood, they swept the rubbish away and into the river Salzach. For this to work, passages mattered a great deal. Houses with a way straight through them led from the Universitätsplatz, the University Square, to the Getreidegasse.

More openings led on from the lane towards the Gries and the Salzach. Today the lane still holds a surprise. In the vaulted passage of the Schatzhaus, the Treasure House, a dried-out shark and a whale rib hang from above. They point to the Levant trade of the Mayr family. They were merchants, and they were seafarers too.