BEHIND me, through the haze of an Austrian morning, Untersberg, the mighty massif of the Berchtesgaden Alps, soared to 6,400ft.

Freshly dusted with the first snows of winter, the jagged peak looked vaguely familiar. Then the schilling dropped. Just a few kilometres down the road was the city-state of Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart and one-time home of the all-singing von Trapp family.

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Salzburg and this mountain starred in The Sound Of Music, the highest-grossing Hollywood musical of all time, and the stage version is now being performed in the city for the first time since the show opened in New York in 1959.

ON SONG: The Sound Of Music has come home to Salzburg. In such a setting and such circumstances, resistance was futile. Standing on the shore of the lake, I flung out my arms like the wings of Austria's heraldic eagle. The hills were alive and I was having my own, very public Maria moment.

I was waiting to board the Sound Of Music Tour bus, loudly painted with images of Julie Andrews and the children. Once on board, our guide Michaela, in her traditional Austrian dirndl dress, smiled and slipped a CD of the soundtrack into the stereo.

Julie Andrews trilled and we passengers sang along as SalzburgerLand glided by in all its pristine splendour, spotted deer loafing among the frost-encrusted conifers.

Salzburg is the treasured secret of Mozart buffs and lovers of Baroque architecture and has achieved stardom in its own right. "The Sound Of Music is very nice but it doesn't mean that we're dancing and jumping around all the time," said Inez, at the start of our guided walking tour.

All of the film's outdoor scenes were shot in and around the city but as Inez led us past Salzburg Museum, with its statue of Mozart outside, we learned how the Sound Of Music gripped the world - except for Salzburg. The film lasted barely a week when it opened in the city. Still haunted by memories of the Nazis, locals did not take to Hollywood's fictionalised version of the family singers who fled to freedom in 1938.

We learned how Baron Georg von Trapp was alone with seven children after the death of his wife Agathe in 1922. Novice nun Maria became governess, married the baron and bore him three more children. A priest, Dr Franz Wasner, gave music lessons and coached the family for contests.

"In the film it is Maria teaching the children to sing. Father Wasner does not feature," Inez commented. "We see the family escaping over the mountains, over the border to Switzerland but our city is on the German border, not the Swiss border."

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Palace Inez was bristling as we strolled Residence Square, where Julie Andrews is seen splashing her hands in the 17th-century fountain.

"The song Edelweiss is beautiful but people think it's an old Austrian folk song.

it didn't exist before Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote it."

Pausing for Sacher Torte chocolate cake at Hotel Sacher, we bounded into the gardens of the Mirabell Palace. Here, among the fountains and statues, Julie Andrews had skipped through Do-Re-Mi. Now we saw outbreaks of Japanese and Americans doing likewise.

More than half-a-century since that first Broadway opening, Salzburg has at last become similarly affected.

In the gilded rococo splendour of the Salzburger Landestheater we watched the new stage show performed in subtitled German but with a lavishness and emotional intensity that broke all barriers of language.

In a final scene a Swastika glows overhead as the family defiantly sings "Bless my homeland for ever..." Nazi guards appear to guard the Landestheater's doors.

Picked out by spotlights, medal-clinking German officers glowered from among the velvet and gold of their balconies. In the stalls, I saw local people weeping as the von Trapps disappeared into the mist.

Later that evening we dined by candle light in the Baroque hall of Salzburg's oldest restaurant, Stiftskeller St Peter, while the Amadeus Consort played Mozart arias.

As the Salzach river reflected the floodlit Hohensalzburg Fortress that has watched over the city for centuries, I saw choristers on their way home breaking into Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.

Salzburg no longer has a problem with Maria but proudly retains its own sound of music.

THE KNOWLEDGE

Kirker Holidays (0207 593 2288/www.kirkerholidays.com) has three nights at the Hotel Stein from 619pp (two sharing), B&B. Price includes return flights from Gatwick, transfers and Sound Of Music excursion. Tickets for the Sound Of Music show at the Salzburger Landestheater (dialling from UK: 0043 662 8715 12222/ www.salzburger-landestheater.at) from £15 to £43.
SalzburgerLand Tourist Board (662 6688/www.salzburgerland.com). Salzburg Tourist Board (662 889870/www.salzburg.info).