His final trip was to St Marx Cemetery, where he was buried in an unmarked grave with four or five other bodies. Yet he managed to keep composing and travelling; in his penultimate year, 1790, he visited Frankfurt, Mannheim and Munich.Mozart died in poverty at what is now Rauhensteingasse 8 on 5 December 1791. The opera was given its premiere in Prague in 1787 to great acclaim, but after the triumph Mozart slid into debt and depression. On his birthday, the home will re-open as the Mozarthaus.He wrote The Marriage of Figaro here. Even in one city, he could not stay still - as the plaques at Milchgasse 1 and Singerstrasse 7 testify. The best of the 18 house moves he made in Vienna was instigated by Joseph Haydn, who in 1785 persuaded him to move to Domgasse 5, close to St Stephen's Cathedral - where he had married three years earlier, and where his funeral would take place.

"In my profession," he wrote to his father, "it is the best place in the world." He was 25 but, relative to his life span, in late middle age. It carves through Bohemia, then deposits you at a backwoods border station named Gm? You feel you are entering Ruritania, but it is actually Austria, and the appointed train will be waiting to escort you across the high plains to Vienna.Treat yourself to the melancholy motif of the Clarinet Concerto (completed in the last year of Mozart's life) as you drift across a deep frozen slab of central Europe in a train out of the 1970s; obsolete Austrian Railways rolling stock ends up here.Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781. While high-speed trains take a faster, more easterly route, the old line is much more spectacular. As the Mozart Museum today, it has become a shrine to the man, where you can hear the echo of his dying cadences.To emulate Mozart's last big journey, in September 1791, take the original railway line between Prague and Vienna, which shadows the post road. Even on a dark (in both senses) December night, the theatre is a beauty: as graceful as, say, the Horn Concerto No 2, but robust enough to survive since the premiere of Don Giovanni in 1787.Mozart himself conducted four of the performances, and was feted as a celebrity. Of all the cities in which he lived, only Prague truly seemed to love him. That reverence continues at the Bertramka villa, where he stayed.

Suddenly, though, it delivers you to the top of Wenceslas Square, fretted with monuments to the symbolism of Czech independence. At the far end, behind some noxious new structures, is the Estates Theatre - the one surviving living monument to Mozart's music. Add an extra dimension of drama by listening to "Exsultate, jubilate" as you go.Better than to travel, though, is to arrive in Prague. The road alongside Hlavni ("main") station initially seems rather bleak. The railway hugs the west bank of the steep-sided Vltava, weaving through vineyards, villages and tempestuous centuries of history. One concert was staged at the Fuggerei, a complex of almshouses that was the first social housing in Europe.

The community is still occupied.From here, aim north to Leipzig, invigorated as you go by Mozart's 40th Symphony. While you change trains at Nuremberg, pop in to the handsome church of St Sebaldus to pay your respects to Johann Pachelbel: the man who pioneered equal temperament tuning, and whose Canon in D inspired The Farm's anthem, "Altogether Now".In Leipzig in 1789, the maestro popped in to JS Bach's old church, St Thomas's, to play the organ. Today, a tablet close to the altar marks the final resting place of the man who was choirmaster here. With luck, you may hear a heavenly choir rehearsal.Travel on the Mozart trail gets spectacular between Dresden and Prague. It happens to be one of the most ancient, beautiful cities in Germany.

Mozart's father came from Augsburg; with plenty of venues and a cultured, well-heeled merchant class, it also offered the prospect of work. So, for the next stage of the journey, listen to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, an inspirational piece of music itself inspired by the promise of a fat fee.Two days by carriage, or another hour by train, brings you to Augsburg, also known as Deutsche Mozartstadt - Germany's Mozart City. As the distant mountains dwindle into a patchwork of snowy fields, the soundtrack should be the bright, optimistic opening of the Piano Concerto No 23.Mozart travelled to Bavaria's capital to oversee the premiere of his opera, La Finta Giardinieri. Now, as then, the city looks especially beautiful at dusk on a sharp winter's day. Mozart tourists, though, have to use their imagination; of all the venues where his work was performed during his lifetime, only one still stands.