Tour the Mirabell Palace. Originally commissioned by the Prince-Bishop Wolf Dietrich and built in the decorative Austrian Baroque style by Lukas von Hildebrant, it is one of Austria's most beautiful 17th century complexes. The incredible gardens were designed by the second of Austria's great Baroque architects, Fisher Von Erlach.

Visit the Rupertinium, Salzburg's museum of modern art. It features works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oscar Kokoschka and younger artists working in Salzburg.

We will board our bus for the spectacular drive along the Danube River to Vienna. All along the route there are great views of the river, surrounding cliffs, medieval fortresses, and Renaissance and Baroque abbeys.

Our first stop will be Stift (a royal land-grant abbey) St. Florian. The abbey is one of the supreme Baroque designs by Jakob Prandtauer and houses a cycle of paintings by the great master of the Danube School, Albrecht Altdorfer.

We will have a brief stop in Linz to tour the old town quarter with its elegant patrician houses.

After lunch, we will stop at the infamous concentration camp of Mauthausen, where thousands of interned soldiers perished at the hands of the Fascists. The camp now contains powerful monuments from all the nations whose soldiers died there.

Our last stop will be Stift Melk (Royal Abbey of Melk), which is one of the most dramatic and impressive Abbeys in the world. Rebuilt in 1702-06 by Jakob Prandtauer, this immense Benedictine monastery is placed on a rocky precipice majestically rising above the banks of the Danube.