The band was not expert, and the atmosphere not unlike that of a provincial palais-de-danse on a Monday afternoon.

The next morning we were awakened by the incessant shunting of trams at the station over the road, varied by the strains of a numerous brass band, which paraded the streets with sabbatarian exuberance from 9 till 12. David turned over and went to sleep. Seizing sketch book and pencil, I rose out of bed, and seating myself on the balcony, revenged myself on Salzburg with an uncomplimentary drawing of the station and one factory chimney.

The remainder of our Sunday we spent in the conventional manner. During the afternoon Simon and I wrote letters to our mothers; and later, when the heat had abated, we set out for our Sabbath walk. We had intended scaling one of the mountains with which the town is oppressively overhung. The hotel advised us to take a tram to Plazl for this purpose. We did so, and it set us down in the middle of the town, by the river. Passing through an archway we began the ascent of a steep and rocky footpath, on the right-hand side of which, set back in wire-faced grottos cut out of the cliff, were twelve life-size ‘Stations of the Cross’ in hideously realistic painted plaster. The path continued, until we were suddenly confronted by a wooden door labelled in Gothic ‘Mozart’s House’. Turning back precipitately, we wandered disconsolately about the suburbs in company with many others – courting couples, happy families, and grand-dads and -dams. It was still extraordinarily hot. Persevering, we reached the country, and giving up the idea of mountains, sank into a primitive beer-garden. The inn-keeper, in shorts and a Tyrolese hat, was talking to a friend, in the same costume, smoking a long and curly German pipe. Two or three Alsatians loafed about, free from their daily labour of drawing little hand-carts. A buxom gal brought us beer and was forced to accept our German money in payment. We sat beneath a chestnut tree and felt very happy. Then we walked home. Simon, in neat plus fours and loud chocolate-and-white stockings, was an object of admiration. The plus four has ‘caught on’ in Germany and Austria, and bank clerks wear it.

That evening we again watched the dancing in the garden. It was enlivened by a Viennese waltz, to which everyone danced the old six step with a little hop in the middle – all except one exclusive party who sat ostentatiously aloof until the next foxtrot. This party contained amongst others a handsome old man in a white moustache, who was referred to as the Baron, and an extremely good-looking woman, with copper, shingled hair, and a tight-fitting dress of red and gold. In my eyes, however, their pre-eminence in the world of fashion was dissolved when next day I found the woman’s portrait peering slyly from the window of the local photographer.

On Monday morning I visited the cathedral and also an unusual Gothic church supported by high, thin, round pillars like factory chimneys; then breakfasted in the Residenzplatz. This is a large open space with an elaborate fountain in the middle; to one side is the Residenz, a long, creamy and very simple baroque building with an archway in the middle; on another the cathedral; and flanking it, a tall tower and a shady row of chestnut trees. From the former there suddenly issued a melancholy, quavering old tune, wafted on the hot, still air by an ancient peal of bells. Everyone showed great interest and looked up, though there was nothing to see. This was followed by an organ recital in the cathedral, where I was able to get cool, until two enormous women, smelling of dentifrice, came and sat down on top of me. On the way back David picked me up in the car.

After lunch we left for Innsbruck. Though both Innsbruck and. Salzburg are in Austria, the geographical vagaries of the district make it necessary to pass over a tongue of Germany if a hundred-mile detour is to be avoided. This meant, therefore, returning along the road by which we had come and crossing four separate frontier barriers.