Salzburg

Salzburg was built twice: once in stone, by prince-archbishops who spent salt revenues making their residence an Italian dream north of the Alps — domes, fountains and squares so complete that UNESCO lists the entire old town — and once in sound, by the son of a court musician, born in 1756 in a yellow house on the Getreidegasse. Salzburg and Mozart have been inseparable ever since: his birthplace and family residence are places of pilgrimage, the Mozarteum Foundation guards the scholarship and the manuscripts, and the Mozarteum's Great Hall rings with his successors in training.

Above it all broods the Hohensalzburg, among Europe's largest fully preserved medieval fortresses, never once taken by siege; below, the Salzach divides the baroque stage-set from the merchants' quarter. The hills, as a certain film insists, are alive — Sound of Music pilgrims have their own itinerary — but the city's supreme performance begins each late July: the Salzburg Festival, founded in 1920 by Max Reinhardt, Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss, opens with Jedermann on the cathedral square and fills the Großes Festspielhaus — carved directly into the Mönchsberg cliff — with the world's greatest orchestras and casts. Herbert von Karajan, Salzburg-born, ruled here for decades; the Whitsun and Easter festivals, the Camerata Salzburg and year-round Mozart weeks complete the calendar.

No city of its size carries more music per square metre. None comes close.