We were in Munich, a quick hour-and-a-half drive to Salzburg, Austria, so we rented a car with GPS and were there before we even had to pee. (You can also take a train from Munich). Salzburg is  the birthplace of Mozart and where The Sound of Music was filmed and really looks like a town you would find in a fairy tale.  A large castle can be seen up in the mountain, and there's a tunnel with gorgeous carvings on the outside. You can just imagine Cinderella in a carriage drawn by flying horses and everyone waving and smiling, like when the good witch of the north leaves Munchkinland and all the munchkins wave goodbye.

I was asked directions by some Italian tourists as soon as we got out of the car -- a knack I seem to have wherever I am; I always get asked directions. I guess I must look like I know where I am going when I should be wearing a T-shirt that says, "Don't ask me, I'm lost too." Funny, the town is so full of tourists, I am not really sure who lives there.

We stayed on the other side of the mountain and walked through it -- there is a walking tunnel. My friends stayed at the Blauegans Art Hotel, on the main, adorable Getreidegasse street (built in the 12th century, it was formerly the only town thoroughfare). The hotel is not cheap, but reasonable for its location and very friendly and arty -- old meets new. The room my friends got came with a warning: "Don't be afraid of the art on the wall of your bedroom; it is by a famous artist." It was a scribbled graffiti expressionist mess, which is probably why they warned us -- I am sure they give this warning from getting calls from guests complaining. We decided the scribble scrabble ultimately looked like a penis.

The room and the whole hotel are fun and most definitely arty, with well thought-out design of the space and care put into it. Bright green felt wool chairs, long grass stalks in thick glass vases as bedside adornments: a nice blend of the building being very old and the carefully planned modern pieces. The bathroom was spacious and had a deep tub and a frosted glass door. They let us borrow an umbrella to go out into the rainy day in the gingerbread town that is Salzburg.

We were there during the Tanz Festival and saw solo pieces by modern dance choreographers Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at the famous Republic theater and later, Meg Stuart at another venue.

Here are the quick Salzburg highlights. Really the town itself is just worth cruising around without any destinations, you will find everything. Mozart is everywhere you look: on candy, on signs; he is not something you will lose sight of there. It is a big festival town for the arts, opera, music, theater, and dance as well as art exhibits and museums. Speaking of which, a museum is in the place where Mozart was born, Mozart's Geburtshaus. It was cool to see but not that exciting. It reminded me of seeing Liberace's sleeping quarters in Las Vegas, with much less flash.

The rosary exhibit at the Cathedral Museum (or Dommuseum) really made us say "Oh my Goth": a collection of prayer beads and rosaries, gems and such. I wanted to put them all on at once. There is also Mozart Square, with a statue of Wolfie for all to admire. Getreidegasse is an uber-quaint shopping street that winds all the way through town and has all the usual boutique shops, from upscale to H+M, as well as a few Christmas (in July) stores and also an Easter store -- for the tourists, I must assume? I think the tourist who loves the Christmas Tree Shoppe in the U.S. must go wild for these. We got suckered into a tiny chocolate store and spent way too much on what turned out to be a mistake: a costly mediocre chocolate bar covered with pink peppercorns. And speaking of suckered, don't let the Mozartkugeln get you. They're everywhere:  chocolate balls filled with praline and pistachio. A Rocher is way better, trust me.

Between dance performances we ate dinner at Triangle restaurant (reservations recommended): nice wines and Sekt, German Prosecco, and delicious food with veggie options, including nice big salads (very important too me).

If we had been able to stay another day and it hadn't been raining, into the mountains we would have gone. The hills are alive in Salzburg, you know.

Theo Kogan is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Fashion & Design. Her THEOlogy column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today she is trading spaces with Travel & Leisure editor Cathay Che.

The thing about living in New York City is that even if you don't travel, people come to you.  People from all over the world bring their holidays, traditions, and foodstuff with them, which can make an average weekend here very cosmopolitan, without the hassle of going back and forth to the airport.

Case in point: On Sunday, I made the trek from Manhattan out to Brooklyn, where most of my reasonable friends now live.  In case you are unfamiliar with the Manhattan vs. Brooklyn debate, I'll sum it up for you.  A decade ago, you could move to Brooklyn, pay less rent, and have more space.  And if you did it then, you were smart, because now, if you move to Brooklyn, you may have more space, but you'll still be paying $2,000+ a month.

Truth be told, there are a lot of people who prefer to live in Brooklyn, even if they can afford Manhattan, just because the neighborhoods are more authentic and teeming with attitudes and scenes of their own.  Williamsburg, DUMBO, and Fort Greene are the hip areas, filled with nubiles and their big dreams.  But my 30-something friends generally live in one of two areas: Park Slope off 5th Avenue, a very established, white, Berkeley-progressive area for crunchy yuppies, dominated by designer ergonomic baby carriages and expensive children's hairdressers and boutiques; or off Smith Street in Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens, a still very white and wealthy strip, but more European and adult with Parisian-style cast-iron str