Salzburg

Built on the Roman settlement of Iuvavum, founded as an episcopal see in 696 and made an archbishop’s seat in 798, living on salt extraction, trade and gold mining. It became a centre of the Counter-Reformation in the seventeenth century, and the monasteries and Baroque churches raised then are much of what the visitor sees: the old town is among the best-preserved north of the Alps and was listed by UNESCO in 1996. Mozart was born here, and three universities keep a large student population in the city.