Photo: Andrew Bossi (CC BY-SA 2.5)
A self-guided audio tour in two parts that follows the carol Silent Night from the city where its author grew up to the village where it was first sung. In Salzburg it walks from Mirabell Palace to Steingasse, where Joseph Mohr was born in 1792, over the Staatsbrücke to the Alter Markt, Mozartplatz and the Salzburg Museum, which holds the earliest surviving manuscript of the carol in Mohr's hand, then Residenzplatz and Domplatz, where the Christkindlmarkt is held each Advent, the cathedral where Mohr was baptised, St Peter's Abbey, where he sang as a boy, and the Great Festival Hall of the Salzburg Advent Singing. Oberndorf lies about twenty kilometres north, a separate journey by the local railway, bus or car: there are the Silent Night Chapel on the site of the church where Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber first performed the carol on Christmas Eve 1818, the Europasteg over the Salzach, and the parish church that keeps the old church's furnishings. The markets run in Advent; the places and their stories are there all year.
12 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 78 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Mirabellplatz and Mirabell Palace, Steingasse and Joseph Mohr's Birthplace, The Staatsbrücke and the Salzach.
Alter Markt, Mozartplatz and the Salzburg Museum, Residenzplatz, Domplatz and Salzburg Cathedral, St Peter's Abbey.
The Great Festival Hall, The Silent Night Chapel, The Europasteg and the Salzach at Oberndorf, St Nicholas Parish Church, Oberndorf.
The narrow medieval lane where the author of Silent Night was born in 1792, and why the plaque is on the wrong house.
The Mozart monument and its Roman mosaic, and the museum that owns the earliest manuscript of Silent Night in Mohr's hand.
The square of the Christkindlmarkt each Advent, with roots in the late-fifteenth-century Tandlmarkt, and the great Baroque fountain at its centre.
The Baroque cathedral consecrated in 1628, where Mozart was baptised and Joseph Mohr after him.
The octagonal memorial chapel at Oberndorf on the site of the church where Silent Night was first sung on Christmas Eve 1818.
The footbridge between Laufen and Oberndorf, two towns split by the border of 1816, on the river of the boatmen who first heard the carol.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 12 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 12 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Salzburg and Oberndorf at Christmas — the Christkindlmarkt and Silent Night, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
12 narration points, including Mirabellplatz and Mirabell Palace, Steingasse and Joseph Mohr's Birthplace, The Staatsbrücke and the Salzach, Mozartplatz and the Salzburg Museum and Residenzplatz. That is about 25 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2 hours in Salzburg, plus the trip to Oberndorf total, but you walk at your own pace. 12 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.