Salzburg and the Grossglockner road, the Alps by coach and on foot

Salzburg means salt castle, and the name explains the city. For centuries the salt mined in the mountains around it was among the most valuable commodities in central Europe, and the prince-archbishops who ruled Salzburg as an independent state grew rich on it. They spent the money on churches, palaces and squares in the Italian baroque manner, and the result is one of the most handsome small cities in Europe, set on the river Salzach beneath a fortress on a crag.

It is also, of course, Mozart's city. He was born there in 1756, in a tall yellow house on the old town's busiest street, and though he left for Vienna in his twenties and had little good to say about his home town by then, Salzburg has made up for it since. Its summer festival, founded in 1920, is one of the great music festivals of the world.

The city of salt and music

Salzburg's old town lies on the left bank of the river, a tight web of lanes and squares beneath the Hohensalzburg fortress, one of the largest medieval castles in Europe, which can be reached by funicular. The cathedral, the archbishops' Residenz and the great squares around them are the work of the seventeenth century. Across the river stand the Mirabell Palace and its gardens, built by one of the archbishops for his mistress.

For a great many visitors, the city is also the setting of The Sound of Music, filmed there and in the surrounding countryside in the 1960s. Austrians were for a long time puzzled by its fame abroad, but the tours of its locations have become a fixture.

The lakes of the Salzkammergut

East of Salzburg lies the Salzkammergut, a region of lakes and mountains whose name, once again, comes from salt. Mondsee and the other lakes are fine for walking along the shore and for boat trips. Hallstatt, on its narrow strip of land between a lake and a mountainside, is the most famous village in the region, and it has become extraordinarily popular: it is best seen early in the morning or in the evening. Its salt mine is one of the oldest in the world, worked since prehistoric times, and it gave its name to an entire culture of the European Iron Age.

South-west of Salzburg, just across the border in Germany, the Königssee is a long, narrow lake between steep mountain walls, crossed by quiet electric boats so that the water stays clean. At one point the boatman traditionally plays a trumpet to show off the echo from the cliffs.

Up the Grossglockner

The Grossglockner High Alpine Road was built in the early 1930s, partly as a project to give work in the Depression, and it remains one of the great mountain roads of the Alps. It crosses the main chain of the Eastern Alps from Salzburg province to Carinthia, climbing through forest and alpine meadows to a pass at over two and a half thousand metres. A side road leads to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, a viewpoint facing the Grossglockner, at nearly 3,800 metres the highest mountain in Austria, and the Pasterze, the longest glacier in the Eastern Alps, which has been retreating fast.

The road is only open in summer, usually from May to early November, depending on the snow. On a clear day, the drive itself is the attraction, with marmots whistling on the slopes and the high peaks all around.

The tours that cover it

Just You's Tyrolean Treasures: Salzburg and the Austrian Alps, seven nights for solo travellers, starts in Munich and visits Salzburg, the Königssee, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, the Krimml Waterfalls, Mondsee and Hallstatt, with time in Kaprun, Zell am See and Kitzbühel.

Travelsphere's Highlights of Austria: Mountains, Lakes and Spectacular Salzburg, seven nights, also starts in Munich and travels through the Tyrol, with Innsbruck, Lake Achensee and the small town of Rattenberg, before reaching Salzburg.

Summer is the season for this part of Austria: the high road is open, the lakes are warm enough for a swim, and the mountains are green. September is quieter and often clearer, and the light on the peaks is better for it.