Fuschlsee, the emerald lake 20 kilometres from Salzburg: the castle where "Sissi" was filmed and the road to Mozart's places and Hallstatt

Twenty kilometres from Salzburg, in the Salzkammergut region, lies a lake whose water is the colour of emerald, with the Alps rising behind it. Fuschlsee isn't Austria's biggest lake, nor its most famous. That's precisely why people escaping the crowds go there - this autumn including Victoria de Marichalar, daughter of Spain's Infanta Elena, who says she is "very happy here".

The lake lives by the seasons. In summer people swim from the small beaches, paddle a kayak or stand on a board. The rest of the year there are the lakeside paths - a quiet walk around water that isn't surrounded by concrete. The village of Fuschl am See is a small Alpine place with a few bathing spots and paths along the lake.

The best-known address is Schloss Fuschl, built in the 15th century as a hunting lodge and summer residence for the prince-archbishops of Salzburg. In the 1950s the "Sissi" trilogy with Romy Schneider was filmed here - the films that turned Empress Elisabeth into a screen icon. Today the castle is a five-star hotel, reopened in 2024 after renovation, with restaurants, pools, a spa, suites and chalets.

Fifteen minutes by car and you're at the Wolfgangsee. St. Gilgen is linked to Mozart, as his mother was born there, and a cable car takes you up the Zwölferhorn. In St. Wolfgang there is a pilgrimage church with a Gothic altar by Michael Pacher, and from there a cog railway climbs to the top of the Schafberg.

Further on is Hallstatt, a village whose salt mine has been worked for thousands of years and is part of a UNESCO-protected cultural landscape. If you only have time for one day, Salzburg is a must: a Baroque historic centre under UNESCO protection, a fortress above the city and the house where Mozart was born.

A region that lives off lakes, castles, one film story from seventy years ago and one composer. None of it is accidental - everything is packaged, signposted and sold. Ohrid and Prespa have no less beauty. The question is whether the tourism institutions know how to tell their story just as well.