Salzburg is a surprisingly small city. It has a population of less than 150,000 and is smaller than Huntsville, Alabama, which has a population closer to 190,000.
It always amazes me in European cities how tourists cluster around just a couple of sites. Mozart’s birthplace, for instance. Yet go just two or three blocks and it feels like you have the place to yourself.
Mozart takes precedence over The Sound of Music around the city. This surely reflects the former’s global appeal and the later’s appeal primarily to U.S. tourists.
There are a lot of U.S. tourists. Maybe even primarily U.S. tourists. And not as many British tourists as I expected.
Everyone speaks English. Even those who profess not to.
In the U.S. it’s very easy to buy a very bad beer. In Salzburg it may be impossible. But with the growth of craft beers, the United States now produces some very good beer on par with Bavaria. There are now, for instance, nine breweries in and around Huntsville, Alabama, offering a wider variety of styles than is available in Salzburg.
Salzburg is a very comfortable city to visit and navigate as a US visitor.
There is a noticeable Italian influence on the city, which makes sense due to proximity, but it surprised me nonetheless.