Salzburg and The Sound of Music

"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start."

I'de like to go ahead and say if you DON'T like Sound of Music, then this isn't the blog entry for you.

     The hills were alive when we got to Salzburg, Austria on Saturday morning. (Forgive my cheesiness). We arrived Friday night at our hostel, the Yoho youth hostel. We had a quick dinner at the hostel and we headed to bed. Vienna had us all wiped out. 

    Saturday morning, however, we woke with a sense of excitement and anxiety. We were about to embark on a much anticipated tour---The Sound of Music tour.

    The hostel advertised that they played The Sound of Music dvd every morning at 10:30 a.m. so we headed downstairs dressed and ready at 10 a.m. and grabbed breakfast. By 11 a.m. they hadn't started the movie, so we proceeded to bug the front desk every five minutes until they just gave us the dvd. It took us about an hour to figure out how to get the dvd player to work and get the volume to function. By the time we had the movie on we were pumped. Finally, as Maria (Julie Andrews) came on the screen and began singing the opening song....it was in German. The whole movie, in German. Bummer.

We finally just accepted the fact and watched it anyways, atleast for the sake of refreshing our memories (which didn't really need refreshing) and seeing the sights on screen that we would be at later that day. Plus, we knew all the words by heart anyway, so we could translate and just pretend we knew German.

We got halfway through it when a bus came to pick us up and took us to the tour. We started out at Mirabell garden, (where Maria and the children sang "Doe Ray Me" and took off to see the sights! Our tour guide was a sassy British woman named Trudy, and we just loved her. She had a very British sense of humor and was full of life. Trudy took us first to the Leopoldskron-Palace, one of the two houses that the film used for the Von Trapp residence. This is the house that all of the backyard scenes were filmed at--where the boat tipped over and where the Baroness and the Captain spent a lot of scenes.

Behind the Leopoldskron Palace!

The pond where they fell off the boat

      We weren't allowed to go in any of the buildings because they are privately owned (and probably SICK of American tourists paying homage to a movie that most Austrians have never heard of, can you believe that?).

      But we were taken across the pond to see the back of the palace--and it was absolutely gorgeous! It looked a bit different than it did in the movie, but only because the pond was completely frozen over. I couldn't believe I was actually there! We took a ton of pictures and listened to our tour guide give some fun facts like--one about Gretl, the youngest child in the film, didn't know how to swim. When they did the boat scene, Julie Andrews was

supposed to fall out of the front of the boat and grab Gretl as soon as they hit the water. They did the first take, and all went well. Then came take two. Julie delivered her line, "Oh Captain, you're home!" and then, by total accident, fell backwards out of the boat while Gretl and the other children fell forward as planned. Well, if you watch the movie, you'll notice that Gretl fell, and didn't come back up. By the time they cut the take, the entire camera crew was in the water to rescue little Gretl. Needless to say, she was too traumatized to do another take, so they ended up using that one in the film.

We loaded the bus again and took off for the famous gazebo that Liesl and Rolfe sang "Sixteen Going on Seventeen". The gazebo had originally been erected for the film and was located on the Leopoldskron Palace property, but when crazed tourists (like myself) started coming and trying to take pictures dancing in the gazebo, the owners of the palace decided it was time for it to go. So they relocated it to a public park and "donated" it the city of Salzburg. It was still open for visitors until a few years back, when an 80-year-old woman came to visit the gazebo. Our tour guide Trudy told us the little lady had decided that SHE wanted to be Liesl, and proceeded to run and jump from bench to bench like Liesl did in the film......The only problem? If you remember, even 21-year-old Liesl (yes, I know, she wasn't really sixteen) did have a bit of help--Rolfe. Well, the 80-year-old woman was missing Rolfe. She fell on her leap from bench to bench, and she ended up breaking her hip and tried to sue the city. It didn't ever happen, but the city of Salzburg decided they had had enough and locked the gazebo. So now you can take pictures outside of it, but you'll just have to imagine your inside dancing like Liesl when you visit! Next we drove

Mozart bridge

The Fronburg Residence, the first house in the film

 around the city for a bit and saw a few more sites. We drove past Mozart bridge, the bridge Maria and the children stop to see the city of Salzburg from. Then we saw the Convent of Nonnberg, where the real Maria Von Trapp trained to be a nun. We also drove past the Fronburg Residence, the first house used for the film for the Von Trapp residence. It was beautiful, but it was covered by trees so my picture isn't wonderful, but you can still tell it's the house used in the film! We stopped a little ways from that house, and took pictures on the path where Maria ran singing " I Have Confidence" as she made her way to the Von Trapp residence for the first time. 

The building with the red dome is the Convent of Nonnberg

After that, they took us up into the mountains. It was a BREATH-TAKING drive! It took about 30 minutes to get up the mountain, so the tour guide told LOTS of stories (that I won't make you read about because you MUST go on the tour for yourself one day if you love the movie) and she played The Sound of Music soundtrack and we all sang along. It probably goes without saying, but there weren't many boys on the tour, atleast no boys who came willingly. 

Kristen and I in the mountains

We took pictures all along the drive, and we stopped at a little town up in the mountain called Monsee. It was the town that had the church that they used in the film for the wedding scene. It also had the path where the children hung from the trees as the Captain drove by.

Inside the wedding-church in Monsee

We stayed in Monsee for an hour or so and had Apple Strudel at a little cafe there. (Austria is known for their wonderful Apple Strudel, and yes, it IS that good!) Then we were allowed to go into the wedding-church and take pictures inside. After that we ran over to the tree path and snapped a few pictures and headed back to the bus. It was getting dark, and the tour was coming to a close.

The Wedding-church from the film

When we got back to Salzburg, we went to Mirabell Garden and took our last, few pictures before the sun went down. We saw the fountain, the little hedge-covered path Maria and the children ran down, and finally took our last picture where Maria and the children sang the final notes from the final scene of "Doe Ray Me". It was the perfect ending to the perfect day.