Mirabell Palace and Gardens

Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau built the palace in 1606 for Salome Alt, with whom he had around fifteen children despite his office, and named it Altenau; his successor renamed it Mirabell and expelled her. Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt rebuilt it in the 1720s, and a fire in 1818 removed much of that, leaving the marble hall - once the archbishops' banqueting room, where Leopold Mozart and his children played - as the finest surviving interior. It is now a civil wedding and concert venue. The gardens were laid out in 1690 by Fischer von Erlach on a strong axis pointing at the fortress, with the Pegasus fountain, the hedge theatre and the dwarf garden of grotesque marble figures, and the steps were used in The Sound of Music.

What you actually see

• The marble hall - the surviving state room where the Mozart children played.
• Formal gardens on an axis - laid out to line up on the Hohensalzburg fortress.
• The dwarf garden - grotesque marble figures on the terrace.
• The film steps - the flight used in The Sound of Music, permanently busy.

When to go

April to October for the planting; the gardens are open all year. Two hours.

Honest expectations

The marble hall is a wedding and concert venue and often closed. The gardens are free but crowded, especially at the film steps. Flower beds are bare from late autumn to spring.

Nearby

The old town, Mozart's residence and the Salzach bridges are minutes away.