Today a day of sightseeing in Salzburg. It is an incredibly photogenic city that grows on you after a while. Our first glimpse of it yesterday evening was spectacular. The city is enclosed and surrounded by three steep hills. One has a fortress on it, one has a casino on it, the last has a monastery.

A large river flows through the middle of the city, separating the monastery hill from the other two; the youth hostel is below the monastery, so we hadn't seen the rest of the city at all. As we approached the river, suddenly the fortress appeared, illuminated on one hill, the casino appeared on another, above an illuminated sheer rock face, and the monastery behind us. Huge floodlights on the casino hill lit the other two. As we crossed the river we were suddenly surrounded by people in tuxedos. The shops that appeared were full of luxury items and, unusual for Austria, were open in the evening

We followed this same street a little farther and suddenly beautiful churches appeared, silhouetted against the lighted cliffs. The people in tuxes were on their way out of the night's summer festival event. For a month, every night there are formal events. Last night's was a performance by the London Symphony Orchestra, which was also played in the main square on a very hi-fi system to about a thousand people (including us, tuxes not required).

It was spectacular (especially after our trip to the beer gardens to hoist some tall ones). After it was over a string quartet played a few pieces in the plaza. It was clear that they hadn't expected so many people to stick around: they ran out of tunes. Reminder: Mendelssohn 64th was the best by LSO.

The summer festival is a stuffy thing, but when everyone can enjoy it, it's not so bad. (No such luck next night).