The monthly Merian issue appeared at the end of January, this time on Salzburg and at the same time the seventh time since 1964 that Merian has focused on Salzburg.

No cracking the whip! According to tradition, what sounds like an instruction from an S&M studio was still written around 1900 at the entrances to Austria’s first road tunnel (131 metres long, construction began in 1764). This connects the old town with the Riedenburg district through the Mönchsberg. This was to prevent carriage horses from passing through the Hall in the tunnel. One of many anecdotes, stories and essays worth reading, with which this Merian edition features Salzburg as a travel destination – true to the slogan “The pleasure of travelling”.

Kick in the ass

It is common knowledge that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the city’s most famous son. That Mozart was baptised Joannes Chrysosthomus Wolfgangus Theophilus is less so. Theophilus is the Greek name for Gottlieb (German) and Amadeus (Latin). And few people know that Mozart was kicked out of Salzburg in 1781. The Merian booklet informatively and entertainingly tells 25 stories about the famous composer and son of the city – matching the 25 years of Mozart’s life that he spent in Salzburg.

City of the Salzburg Festival

The Merian editorial team had an interesting conversation with the president of the Salzburg Festival Helga Rabl-Stadler and artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser about provocation, the power of art and a difficult 100th birthday. In 2020, the Salzburg Festival, founded by Max Reinhardt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss in 1920, turned 100 and was able to run successfully despite the pandemic.

In a whimsically written essay, Peter Lohmeyer reports on his (love) relationship with Salzburg “My summers in the city of the festival”. For the past eight years, Peter Lohmeyer has played the role of Death in “Jedermann” on Domplatz, the largest open-air stage in German-language spoken theatre. Jedermann” has been a central part of the Salzburg Festival peace project since 1920.

Village of World

In a city tour “Just don’t let go”, the politician and entrepreneur Sepp Schellhorn describes his bivalent relationship with Salzburg, the “village of the world” with an ambiguous borrowing from the writer Thomas Bernhard “With me and Salzburg everything is in relationship”.

The tense relationship between village and world is also described in this issue of Merian by Thorsten Sadowsky, director of the Museum der Moderne, in “Doppeltes Kunststück”. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg shows contemporary art in medieval surroundings at two locations that could not be more different.

Struggle with the egg dish

In the column “Die Nockerl-Demut” author Till Raether very entertainingly describes his attempts to make Salzburg’s most famous dessert in an oven tube. “It was the Nockerl that taught me what humility is. Humility is to succumb to an egg dish and accept that.” What this is all about is also in this Merian issue. And much more. For example, how five long-established craft businesses successfully resist machine competition “A pair of leather trousers for Louis Vuitton”. Or what a remarkable modern contrast to the medieval character of the old town the Andräviertel on the other side of the Salzach forms “Beyond the Old Town”. Or that Salzburg’s suburb of Grödig is home to Austria’s only sturgeon farm “Caviar from the suburbs”.

132 pages full of inspiration with great photos that make you want to travel. Especially in times like these, when the desire to travel is hard to realise, this Merian booklet is a very good opportunity to keep the anticipation alive for times after the pandemic. And then to pay a visit (again) to the beautiful city on the Salzach.

You can order the current Salzburg issue of Merian here. Further information on Salzburg.