THE WALK IN
Mirabell Gardens & The Sound of Music: The Walk to Your Concert
The free Baroque gardens you pass through to reach the hall are one of the world's most-filmed movie sets — here's what to look for on the way in.
See Mirabell concerts on GetYourGuide ↗The most famous garden in Salzburg, and it's free
The Mirabell Gardens were laid out in their formal Baroque shape from 1687 to designs associated with Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach — geometric, symmetrical and open to anyone, free of charge during the day. For concertgoers they are a gift: arrive early and you can walk one of the loveliest gardens in Austria, in the evening light, on your way to the hall. It turns the concert into a proper occasion and costs nothing extra.
Do-Re-Mi, the Pegasus fountain and the steps
If the gardens look familiar, that is because the von Trapp children sing 'Do-Re-Mi' here in The Sound of Music. The Pegasus fountain — a winged horse on a plinth — is the exact spot they dance around, and the wide stone steps up to the Rosenhügel, the rose hill, are where they line up 'doe-a-deer' for the song's finale. Standing at the fountain before your concert, you are on one of the most-filmed movie sets in the world, on your way to hear the music of Salzburg's other favourite son.
The Dwarf Garden, the hedge tunnel and the fencers
Beyond the famous fountain, the gardens hold quieter pleasures worth a few minutes: the Zwerglgarten, or Dwarf Garden, a row of comic marble dwarf statues said to be among the oldest such sculptures in Europe; a leafy hedge tunnel; and the Borghese Fencer statues that also feature in the film. None of it takes long, and all of it is free — the ideal way to fill the time before an evening concert with something more memorable than waiting in a café.
The Angel Staircase and the concert entrance
The palace's grand marble staircase, known as the Angel Staircase, was built during Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt's Baroque rebuild of the palace in the 1720s. Putti decorate its marble balustrade, and the sculptures in the niches are by Georg Raphael Donner. The organiser gives the concert entrance as the courtyard, Staircase 4, on the first floor, reached from Mirabellplatz or through the garden by the Pegasus fountain.
Two Salzburgs, one address
What makes the evening special is that it quietly unites the two things Salzburg is most famous for. Mozart and The Sound of Music are usually sold as separate tourist trails, but at Mirabell they meet at a single address: you pass through the film's most beloved garden set to reach a hall where the real Mozart performed. Arriving early to walk the gardens is not killing time before the concert — it is the first half of the experience.