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Streets on the right bank of the Salzach zero in on Platzl , a small square at the eastern end of the Staatsbrucke. Entering Platzl to the north is Steingasse, originally the route by which the salt traders arrived in the city. Still preserving much of its character, it's a narrow, cobbled alley lined with buildings of medieval origin, many of which now house bars, restaurants and, in one case at least, a discreet high-class brothel. Ascending eastward from Platzl is the Linzergasse , a busy pedestrianized shopping street hung with the wrought-iron shop signs typical of the Getreidegasse. The street skirts the lower slopes of the Kapuzinerberg , which is named after the Capuchin monastery that crowns its summit. Fortified by Archbishop Paris Lodron during the Thirty Years' War, the hill still sports a brace of attractively pinnacled defensive towers, together with a stretch of wall, on its southern flanks. During World War II German planners earmarked the Kapuzinerberg as the site of the so-called Gauforum; a grandiose civic project featuring Party headquarters, a palace for the Gauleiter (regional governor), sports stadium and a brand new Festspielhaus. Envisioned as a Nazi acropolis that would help recast Salzburg as the Teutonic Athens, the Gauforum never got past the planning stage. Easily climbed in five minutes from Linzergasse, today's Kapuzinerberg is primarily known for its excellent view of Salzburg's domes and spires, a panorama which reveals skyline details not always visible at ground level, notably the high, broad roof of the Franziskanerkirche, billowing out like a circus big top; and the statues balancing precariously on the twin towers of Fischer von Erlach's Kollegienkirche. Continuing along Linzergasse, the dour Sebastianskirche is less interesting than the St Sebastian cemetery (daily 7am-7pm) behind it, a colonnaded oasis of inner-city peace dominated by the mausoleum of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich . The tiled interior, with paintings by Elias Castello (whose own grave, in the arcade to the west, is one of the finest Renaissance monuments in the cemetery), adds delicacy to what is otherwise a pompous and self-regarding monument. The path leading from the cemetery entrance to the mausoleum passes the graves of Mozart's father Leopold and widow Constanze, the latter buried beside her second husband, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, one of Mozart's first biographers. Elsewhere, innumerable family tombs attest to an Austrian love of the macabre: skulls abound and, on the von Goldenstein family tomb (under the arcade at the northern end), a fine, emaciated figure of Death holds an hourglass. In the southwestern corner of the cemetery is the tomb of Paracelsus , the Renaissance humanist and alchemist who was the founder of modern pharmacology. Leaving the cemetery by the west entrance (just by the Paracelsus memorial) and turning right into a narrow alley soon brings you to the much rebuilt Loretokloster on Paris-Lodron-Strasse, infamous for the seventeenth-century gaol which occupied one corner of the monastery until it was destroyed by allied bombing in World War II. The Hexenturm or "witches' tower" was built to accommodate those accused of sorcery during one of the most notorious witch-crazes in Europe. Dubbed the Zauberjackel Affair after the nickname of one of its first defendants, the craze reached its height in 1678, when a total of 109 people were put on trial for a variety of devil-related offences. Two thirds of the suspects were under 21 years of age, and most were itinerant beggars or landless peasants looking for work - it's reasonable to assume that the witch hunt symbolized the discomfort felt by Salzburg cityfolk towards a potentially violent rural underclass. Those found guilty were rewarded with death by strangulation if they agreed to confess their sins, and public burning if they refused.
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