Domplatz

This guide to Domplatz in Salzburg starts with an archaeologist brushing dust from a mosaic floor buried beneath the square for over a thousand years, part of a Roman villa built here in the late second or early third century. You'll hear how the villa's owner piped hot air under his rooms to warm the floors through Alpine winters, long before any archbishop dreamed of a cathedral on this spot. The guide walks through the centuries of building that followed, from a Romanesque cathedral raised in 1181 to the Baroque one still standing beside you.