If I’ve learnt one thing in the last two-and-a-half weeks, it’s that – provided you have the clothes and stomach for cold weather – winter is an excellent time for touristing in Europe. Having previously only come to London in busy, overpopulated summer, it’s been a delight to find the city so free of queues and crowds. And our four days in Salzburg also benefited nicely from the near-complete lack of people.

Oh, there were a few. But tourism in Salzburg is almost entirely about the Festival, and we, of course, weren’t there for that; we weren’t even in time for Mozart-Woche. So even the oldest, prettiest and Mozartiest bits of town were quiet and walkable, and it’s such a picturesque place that even the cold and wet can’t make it miserable – although it was nicer still when the rain let up on Day #3. We even took a carriage ride through the Altstadt, which naturally put Fiakermilli’s aria in my head.

I resisted the souvenir shops, with their cornucopia of Mozart tat, and limited myself instead to a visit to this house.

Not a great photo but the sign above the door says “Mozart Wohnhaus”. These are the apartments in which the Mozart family lived from 1773 to 1780, and for 7 euros each, you can walk through them, audio guide (on which I was pleasantly surprised to find Yvonne Kenny’s L’amero, saro costante among the musical excerpts!) in hand, and inspect glass case displays of letters, autograph scores and so on. His piano was also there. Besides, just knowing that you’re in Mozart’s house is kind of hard to beat, in terms of classical composer groupie-dom. And the gift shop has rubber ducks dressed as Mozart – clearly one of life’s necessities. (I didn’t buy one.)

I also gazed affectionately, several times, at the exterior of the house where Wolfie was born. Once at night, from a safe distance, as there was a very drunk person stumbling in front of it, and then several times while window-shopping in its vicinity. Somehow I’m still always surprised to stumble across historic birthplaces just sitting there amidst your run-of-the-mill apartment blocks, shoe shops, kebab restaurants, and so on. I think I still, irrationally, imagine them set apart in some distant, cloistered spot, radiating Artistic Significance.

I didn’t, alas, make it up to Hohensalzburg, the mighty fortress which towers above the town. The funicular railway was closed for repairs, and somehow steep roads in cold weather didn’t appeal. I also forwent the Sound of Music tour, despite having cherished an undying love for both the film and Julie Andrews during my final years of high school. Actually we didn’t really do much actively touristy stuff at all; just wandering around town, taking in the prettiness and history of it all. Narrow cobblestone streets are murder on my ankles, but I love them anyway, and it’s always nice to just happen upon, say, a statue of Karajan, a 17th century monastery, or the fountain Maria passed while singing I Have Confidence.

But of course the reason we were there in the first place was a morning concert of Beethoven and Mahler by the Mozarteum Orchestra, in the oh-so-congenial surroundings of the Grosses Festspielhaus. There’s a bit of mental re-adjustment required to take in Das Lied von der Erde at such an early hour – and I was just in the audience; more demanding still for those who had to sing it. Still, it was beautifully done, as was the rather more morning-appropriate Beethoven 6. Making it all happen is a name all Sydney operaphiles (and many others besides) will know, the excellent Mark Wigglesworth, who conducted Opera Australia’s Peter Grimes to such unprecedented acclaim in 2009. He returns to the company for Don Giovanni later this year and while I promise I’m not stalking him, I may just make it to a performance. He’s also conducting Parsifal for ENO here in London, which I expect I’ll see multiple times. (But again, not stalking.)

And from the concert we came – via lunch, and Zurich airport – straight home to London. Where my next concert (in just a couple of hours in fact) is a pairing of, um, Beethoven and Mahler. Again. No singing this time, though. Yannick Nézet-Séguin – who visited the Sydney Symphony not long ago – conducts the LPO in the Emperor Concerto (soloist Nicholas Angelich) and Mahler 5.