Every summer, Salzburg becomes a showcase for stars and celebrities. In 2020, as the Salzburg Festival turned 100. Around 200 concerts, opera and theater performances in just 43 days attract more than a quarter of a million visitors from more than 80 countries to Austria's fourth-largest city.

The festival opens every year with "Everyman" (pictured) on Cathedral Square. The production of this play in 1917 also marked the birth of the festival and has become its trademark since then. In addition to Cathedral Square, the Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule (Riding School) are its best-known venues. In 2020, actor Tobias Moretti (left) gets a new female paramour.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first saw the light of day at Getreidegasse 9 (left in the picture) in 1756. Now there is a museum in the family’s original living quarters. Mozart fans can see a second Mozart residence just around the corner, where he lived as an adult while serving as concertmaster until he turned his back on the city and moved to Vienna.

It's always worth looking up: The delicate, playful wrought-iron guild signs above the shops and pubs are an optical highlight in Getreidegasse. Salzburg's soul is in its cafés — with their tempting sweet specialties: Salzburger Nockerln, a kind of baked soufflé, and Mozartkugeln, small, round chocolates filled with nougat and marzipan.

As in Mozart's time, the Old Town is shaped by its narrow lanes and spacious squares. One of the loveliest is Kapitelplatz, Chapter Square. High above it towers the symbol of the city, Hohensalzburg Fortress, one of the largest medieval fortified castles in Europe. Since 1996 the Old Town has been a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In the 16th century, Salzburg's prince-archbishops had the DomQuartier district with its Residenz palace and St. Peter's Abbey rebuilt in Italian Baroque style to display their prestige and power. Their aim was to create a “Rome of the North.” Salzburg Cathedral is now considered a major innovation: the first early Baroque church building north of the Alps.

Hellbrunn Palace was one of the Salzburg prince-archbishops' prestige-building projects. This masterpiece of hydraulic engineering, with its water-powered automata and trick fountains, attracts 300,000 visitors a year and leaves none of them dry. The old trees that line Hellbrunner Allee, which runs through its park, provide a habitat for rare beetles, bats and woodpeckers.

Engaged couples queue up in front of Mirabell Palace on summer weekends for the privilege of saying “I do” in its Marble Hall. Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich had this pleasure palace built 1606 as a love token for his mistress, Salome Alt. The park provides a vista that reaches as far as Hohensalzburg Fortress, framed by an alpine panorama.

On the steep cliffs of the Mönchberg, one of Salzburg's three local mountains, the puristic architecture of this museum of modern art challenges the Baroque of the Old Town. The museum focuses on modern Austrian graphic and photographic works. Its terrace provides one of the loveliest views of Salzburg.

Airplanes, racing cars and delicious food: Since 2003, Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz has been sharing his passions with the public. In Hangar-7, a unique glass and steel structure, Mozart operas and TV shows take place in the middle of his historical aircraft collection. The event location also houses a gourmet restaurant and bars — all with a view of the Alps.

Salzburg isn't just for classical music lovers: There's plenty of partying and dance music at the Electric Love Festival, which has taken in early July since 2013. In 2022, the festival took place from July 6-9. On the Salzburgring race track, usually used for motorsport events, 120 DJs appear on five stages. It's considered Austria's most important electronic music festival.

On Friday morning, many radio stations across Europe played John Lennon and Yoko Ono's peace hymn "Give Peace a Chance" at the same time. Stations in Germany, France, Italy, Latvia, Iceland, Poland and Croatia all took part as a way to express solidarity with Ukraine and protest the Russian invasion. The Ukrainian station Radio Promin also played the song.

The message is crystal clear: "Stop War." Those words were sprayed in yellow and blue onto a wall in Berlin's Mauerpark alongside an image of two girls hugging cheek-to-cheek. One girl has the Ukrainian flag on her face, the other one the Russian. The mural was created by the Dominican-born street artist Eme Freethnker, who lives in the German capital.

On Thursday at noon, churches and cathedrals across Germany rang their bells as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine. Cologne's Cathedral was among them, ringing its bells for a full seven minutes, one minute for each day since the war started. A few days earlier, on the Monday carnival holiday known as "Rosenmontag," some 250,000 people, including those in this picture, demonstrated against the war.

Demonstrations also took place in Berlin, and various other activist movements also took up the anti-war call. Above is a Fridays for Future demonstration that took place on Thursday in Berlin. The activists demanded an end to fossil fuels and war. Some have pointed out how dependence on Russian gas has financed Putin's regime.

Over the past week, demonstrations against war have been visible around the world, and many famous urban landmarks were lit up in yellow and blue, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. One of them was the TV tower in Frankfurt, Germany.

When German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his Berliner Ensemble, a theater company he founded in East Berlin, moved into the above premise in the 1950s, he had a stage curtain installed that bore a dove by Pablo Picasso. The bird is a sign of peace, and Brecht intended it as an anti-war sign. The Berliner Ensemble recently reinstalled the original curtain to protest the war in Ukraine.

Those words, calling for understanding, are written across the surface of a closed-off highway overpass in the western German city of Lüdenscheid. At 300 meters long, it is one of the biggest street art installations in the world. The bridge is shut due to possible collapse, so painting the words was not without risk.

Hanging from the colonnade of the Fridericianum, a museum in the city of Kassel, in the central German state of Hesse, are three panels calling to stop the war and Putin. Entitled "Anti War Drawings, 2022," they were created by Dan Perjovschi, a Romanian-born artist. More of his works will be on display during Kassel's prestigious, upcoming Documenta contemporary art exhibition.

Artist Yoko Ono installed a message for peace in London's Piccadilly Circus — but not just there. It can also be seen in Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Milan, New York City and Seoul.

Initially, Disney announced it would no longer release films in Russian cinemas. Now the corporation is halting all its activities, from its TV channels, including TV content marketing, to licensing and cruises. In a statement, Disney said it is taking the steps in light of "the relentless assault on Ukraine and the escalating humanitarian crisis."

The Cannes Film Festival announced on March 1 that it would "not welcome official Russian delegations" or people linked to the country's government. A number of film festivals are reacting similarly, including Glasgow and Stockholm. Locarno has announced it would not join a boycott, whereas Venice will offer free screenings of a film about the 2014 conflict in the Donbas region.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the song contest, stated on February 25 that "in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year's Contest would bring the competition into disrepute." Meanwhile, Ukraine's folk rap Kalush Orchestra (photo) have emerged as the act with the best odds to win.

London's Royal Opera House has canceled the summer season of Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet. The Metropolitan Opera's staging of "Lohengrin," co-produced with the Bolshoi, will also be affected by the New York opera house's decision to cut ties with Russian state-supported artists. Until now a Putin loyalist, Bolshoi director Vladimir Urin was however among the signatories of a letter opposed to the war.

Many Russian artists have condemned the war. But despite an ultimatum from the Munich Philharmonic to publicly position himself, star conductor Valery Gergiev remained silent on the war led by Putin, his friend since 1992. On March 1, the German orchestra fired its acclaimed chief conductor, and the globe-trotting maestro's numerous concerts in Europe and the US have also been canceled.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Berlin State Opera have ended their collaboration with Russian opera star Anna Netrebko, who was asked to "repudiate her public support for Vladimir Putin," but declined to do so. She is "one of the greatest singers in Met history," said the opera house's director Peter Gelb, "but with Putin killing innocent victims in Ukraine, there was no way forward."

Amid calls for cultural institutions to remove allies of Putin from their boards, museums are cutting ties with major Russian benefactors. Billionaire Vladimir Potanin has stepped down from the board of trustees of the Guggenheim Museum (photo), according to The New York Times, while Artnet reports that banking magnate Petr Aven has left his position as a trustee of the Royal Academy in London.

Amsterdam houses the largest satellite of Saint Petersburg's storied Hermitage Museum. It had until now never commented on Putin's political actions, but "with the invasion of the Russian army in Ukraine, a border has been crossed. War destroys everything. Even 30 years of collaboration," the Dutch museum stated on March 3. They are also closing their current exhibition, "Russian Avant-Garde."

It is not always the organizers of events who are boycotting Russian acts. At the Venice Biennale, which starts on April 23, it is rather the artists and curator of the Russian exhibition who have resigned, stating on Instagram that "the Russian Pavilion will remain closed" in protest of civilians being killed by missiles and Russian protesters being silenced.

Following Disney's lead, Warner Bros, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Universal have all decided to halt the release of films in Russian cinemas. "The Batman" (photo) was to be released in the country on March 4. Other upcoming titles affected by the decision include Disney's Pixar animated film "Turning Red," Paramount's "The Lost City" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" and the Marvel film "Morbius."

"Ukraine, we stand with you, and with all those in Russia who oppose this brutal act," said Nick Cave. He has canceled his Russian tour dates planned for the summer, just like many other groups, including Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Iggy Pop and Green Day. Popular Russian rapper Oxxxymiron has also canceled his shows in the country, calling for an anti-war movement.