Mozartsteg

This guide to the Mozartsteg footbridge in Salzburg starts with a coin: crossing it today costs nothing, but before nineteen twenty-one a toll keeper wanted payment before your foot touched the far bank. It traces the temperamental Salzach below, a river whose shifting currents eventually defeated the shipping companies that once floated salt barges on it, and follows a struggling cafe owner named Georg Krimml, whose rivals across the water did better trade than he did. You'll hear about the private society he formed to fund this crossing, and the one condition attached to every step across it. Look for the tiny toll house still standing at the southwest corner.