Although I’d got up at 4am, I met some fun people in the hostel bar and felt compelled to check out Salzburg’s nightlife. In the end I fell into the classic tourist trap of an Irish bar, but it was quite a fun night. After I’d been up for 23 hours I decided to crash. Just four hours later I had to get up to head out for my flight home. It was a ridiculously short trip, really, but I didn’t feel like I had missed anything of Salzburg in my day there.

After a restorative sleep on the bench, I headed for the fortress. I’d only just escaped from The Sound Of Music, but I couldn’t escape from Mozart. He was everywhere. Half the buildings and streets seemed to be named after him, and statues of him watched me as I walked through the town. Up at the fortress, I decided not to part with any money to actually look around. The views over town were good enough for me, so I sat up on the fortress walls, looking out over Austria. South of town the Alps rose dramatically from the plains, their peaks shrouded in mist.

After my trip to Norway earlier in the year, I’d got a bit of a taste for European city breaks. There was a Ryanair sale on, and I got flights to Salzburg for 20 pounds, so early one November morning I headed up to Stansted to fly out there. London had been grey and cold, hardly defying expectations for November. But in Salzburg the air was fresh and the sun was shining. I’d got up at 4am and so I was pretty tired by the time I got into the city. I checked into a hostel, and sat down in a room by the reception to have a look through my guide book and plan my day. Suddenly, before I knew what was happening, the door had shut, the curtains were closed, a TV was switched on and I was in a screening of The Sound Of Music. I shut my book, jumped up and got out as quickly as I could. After that lucky escape, I headed out to explore. I went for a walk along the banks of the Salzach River, down which a warm wind was blowing. I got to a bench with a view of the [...]