Salzburg, Austria: Secrets of Salzburg and The Sound of Music still a tourist drawcard

Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace. It's steeped in classical music and its baroque Old Town is world heritage-listed, but its connection to something rather less high-brow is central to its popularity as a tourist destination: the 1965 film The Sound of Music. Tourists caper around its Residenzplatz singing I Have Confidence and burst through the gates of the Benedictine Nonnberg Abbey warbling How Do You Solve a problem Like Maria?. They twirl and selfie and skip along to their inner Sound of Music. Pity the poor Salzburger.

Our excellent cynic of a guide, who is showing us around Salzburg as part of a 15-day APT Magnificent Europe river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam, is caustic about the carry-on and shares with us some of the porkies in the film as well as her recipe for pork roast (schweinebraten). Cynicism and food – these are a few of my favourite things!

One of the most egregious errors in The Sound of Music had the von Trapps escape the Nazis by trekking over the Bavarian Alps to Switzerland. The real von Trapps departed for Italy in a rather more mundane fashion, via Salzburg's Aigen redbrick railway station, unhindered by anyone. Had they climbed the filmic mountain, they would have beaten a path directly to Germany and Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat.

And all was not necessarily edelweiss meadows and snow-capped peaks, among the cast, either. Apparently actor Christopher Plummer, as Baron von Trapp, was not happy about having to carry "that bloody fat child up the mountain". Poor Gretel.

The filmic von Trapp home is another illusion. Their actual villa is in Aigen, where the family lived from 1923 to 1938, about 10 minutes from Salzburg's Old Town. It is now a hotel, cashing in merrily – and why not. Everyone else is. The exterior shots of the villa in the film were of the rococo Schloss Leopoldskron. The interiors were recreated in Hollywood. Frohnberg Palace's facade, courtyard and front gate were also used in the film.

You need to keep your wits about you when visiting Salzburg's baroque Mirabell Palace Gardens. Sound of Music tours often start here and tourists are at their silliest.

Forget about snapping an unimpeded photo of the large, fist-pumping Greek statues at the garden entrance, which leap forward triumphantly. Any number of large, fist-pumping Sound of Music aficionados will leap triumphantly into your shot. If you're really unlucky, they'll be singing that infuriating earworm, Do Re Mi, at the top of their lungs.