Salzburg Attractions

In 1991, the bicentenary of Mozart's death, special events and celebrations were held. January 27, 2006 was the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Mozart's birth, Salzburg had major celebrations throughout the year in recognition of this occasion. The picturesque town occupies both banks of the River Salzach, which here emerges from the Salzburg Alps into an expanse of lower land dominated by the Untersberg (1,853m/6,082ft). The prospect of the city, with the towers and domes of its churches and, looming over it the massive bulk of the Hohensalzburg fortress, is one of unforgettable beauty. The romantic old town, huddled on the left bank of the Salzach between the river, the Mönchsberg and the Festungsberg, is an area of narrow medieval streets, arcaded courtyards and tall narrow houses, contrasting with the town of the Prince Bishops between the Neutor and the Neugebäude, a magnificent Baroque residential area with handsome buildings and spacious squares. On the right bank of the Salzach lie the newer districts, with Kapuzinerberg and its conspicuous Capuchin friary above it to the east.

History and Art

Evidence of Neolithic settlement was found on the Rainberg. Later the site was occupied by Illyrians, whose name for the settlement, Juvavum ("seat of the sky god"), was taken over by the Celts and the Romans. During the Roman period (15 B.C. to A.D. 500) Salzburg had the status of a municipium, the chief town of a district. An important Roman road ran by way of Cucullae (Kuchl) and the Radstädter Tauern - where the old Roman milestones can still be seen - to Virunum, near Klagenfurt, and on to Rome. During the period of the great migrations Juvavum fell into decay. The next major events in the history of Salzburg were the occupation of the surrounding territory in the sixth C. by the Bajuwari or Bavarians, then still pagans, and the foundation of the monastic houses of St Peter and the Nonnberg by St Rupert (c. 696). Under Bishop Virgil (745-84), a native of Ireland, and his successor Arno, the Bishopric, founded in 739, became the base from which the Alpine lands and the territory in the middle Danube valley were Christianized. Virgil built the pre-Romanesque cathedral, the foundations of which were excavated in 1956-58. The Franciscan Church and St Michael's Church - originally the town's parish churches - also date from the eighth and early ninth C. The Romanesque period (1000-1250) was a great era of growth and development, when the Hohensalzburg and numerous churches were built - and so well built that the German king Conrad III was moved to say that he had never seen finer churches than those of Salzburg. The main structure of St Peter's Church dates from the 12th C. During this period, too, the Cathedral was rebuilt - with its five aisles the largest Romanesque church in the Holy Roman Empire. Remains of the frescos which then decorated the interiors of churches have survived in the Nonnberg convent with its severe and solemn half-length figures of saints. During the Gothic period (1250-1530) the secular power of the Archbishops suffered severe reverses in the Hungarian wars, but this was nevertheless a time of rich artistic activity. A new social class now came to the fore in the form of well-to-do townspeople, grown wealthy through their trade with Nuremberg, Augsburg, Vienna and Venice, The energetic Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach (1495-1519) rebuilt the Hohensalzburg broadly in the form in which we see it today. The Blasiuskirche (St Blaise's Church) was built in the 14th C., followed in the 15th C. by the magnificent choir of the Franciscan Church, the church of