The city of Salzburg may not have paid much attention to its most famous son when he was alive. Two centuries after his passing, you can’t miss him even if you want to
There’s that face again. It’s a recurring thought for anyone stepping into Salzburg without knowing who Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was. For the millions who do claim awareness, the sudden appearance of his visage on a bottle of cherry liquor can still come as a surprise. In fact, to now think of Salzburg without Mozart is a lot like imagining Agra without the presence of a certain white mausoleum.

There’s more to the fourth-largest city in Austria, of course. Primarily, that other never-ending tribute it continues to pay—to Hollywood musical The Sound Of Music. To paraphrase then, Salzburg now survives on two of its past rejections: a composer it failed to appreciate, and a movie it wasn’t really interested in.
And so, one takes tour guide recommendations related to the composer and the musical with a large pinch of salt. Incidentally, the name Salzburg came from toll-paying barges carrying salt on the Salzach river. Its original Roman name, Juvavum, was changed by Saint Rupert of the Frankish royal Merovingian family.

As I strolled through its ancient streets though, the gorgeous Alps standing tall in the backdrop, what struck me more than anything else was the all-encompassing presence of Mozart. Even the home he was born in—Hagenauer House at Getreidegasse 9, where the family lived from 1747 to 1773—found itself on rows of refrigerator magnets lining the shelves of souvenir stalls. Outside the building stood a few hundred tourists, huddled in a digital camera-driven frenzy usually reserved for someone performing on stage. Inside were carefully preserved displays of his first violin, first clavichord, first handwritten score, even a few carefully preserved locks of hair. It was all a far cry from when the composer actually walked those wooden floors, when the city of his birth compelled him to look for fame and fortune in other parts of Europe.

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