the hills are alive

i had been looking forward to salzburg for a long time. ever since brandon and i began discussing a trip to germany, i maintained that the only way i'd go is if we could detour to salzburg so i could take the SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR. for those of you unaware, sound of music is one of my very favorite movies...i can quote every line, sing every song, even do most of the dance moves. i was fully looking forward to visiting the famous city where they taped the film -- and of course taking the tour!

but first things first. salzburg is a lovely town...don't get me wrong. it's very scenic and has a lot of things to do, if you're into mozart or the sound of music. but other than that...let's just say b has taken to calling it "sucksburg."



old town across the river -- we toured the hohensalzburg fortress, up on the top of the hill.



we toured mozart's residence and listened to some of his symphonies while visiting his house. very cool.



we stayed in one of these houses, up on a hill overlooking salzburg. this was b&b #2. and we had an amazing view of the untersberg mountain and the whole city out our bedroom window:



every town we visited on our trip started out sunny, and then we woke up to rain on morning 2 every time. salzburg was the warmest stop though; we even ventured outside withOUT jackets our first night there. i love sunshine!

we woke up our first morning there to finallllly take the SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR. let me tell you, these people did not disappoint. i was absolutely thrilled and very excited from the moment they picked us up on our doorstep, to when they loaded us on the very touristy-looking painted bus, to when they drove us around austria, to when they dropped us off.

it was everything i dreamed of!! this included, but was not limited to, singing along with the soundtrack while we drove, a hilarious tour guide, all sorts of new and interesting facts/myth busters and visits to many of the key filming locations. woo hoo!

if this isn't a face of sheer delight i don't know what is:



i will now walk you through all of the sites we visited. if anyone is unfamiliar with the scenes i mention, please let me know. i will be happy to describe in full detail, complete with a personal imitation, each scene and maybe even queue up the footage on my 40th anniversary special edition dvd.

first off we drove through salzburg looking at famous sites, including the bridge they rode bikes across:



here's nonnberg abbey (the red dome), where the nuns lived:



this is the lake that was "behind" the von trapp house in the film. this is also the house that currently sits at the lake...NOT the house from the movie. they actually used two separate locations for the house -- one for the backyard (this one), one for the house. which also wasn't the actual von trapp house.



speaking of the house, it is privately owned and we couldn't even drive on the road right next to it (the one maria skips down on her way to meet the captain). boo. this is as close as we got -- you can barely see the brown building to the far left:



please also note the trees lining the road -- those are the trees the kids climb in their curtain clothes! ("do you mean to tell me that my children have been roaming about salzburg dressed in nothing but some old DRAPES?")

like THIS needs any introduction...but here's the gazebo from liesel & rolfe's 16-going-on-17 song! they used this one for the exterior, but did all the interior dancing etc. on a soundstage. unfortunately we couldn't go inside. apparently an 80 year old woman broke her hip inside it trying to do a liesel-hop across the benches. stupid lady.



then we hopped back on the bus to drive out into the famous lakes and mountains region of austria -- GORGEOUS. that's where maria took the kids to teach them do re mi, along with where they rode the train, skipped by the river, rode bikes etc.

here's me in front of the lakes region. and yes, i'm wearing that hideous maroon sweater again. did i mention i wore the exact same outfit -- jeans, maroon sweater, scarf and converse -- EVERY day because it was freezing and that was my warmest outfit? yeah, i came home and burned the sweater.


the main point of going out there was to see the famous church where maria and the captain got married:



here's the interior:



we had lunch (and more apple streudel!) in the little town and then boarded the bus back to salzburg. they dropped us off in the famous mirabellplatz garden...probably one of the most recognizable places from the movie. recognize these?







i was in heaven, recognizing every part of the garden we walked through. my favorite part was the shady archway -- maria and the boys run through it in the movie. so of course i did the same. here's me running with the ghost of julie andrews...sheer bliss.





and then we were done. my dream had come true.

the worst part of salzburg came the next day -- sunday. it started off badly because we had to check out of our hotel at 9 a.m. and had nowhere to go all day. then we decided not to find a church to go to because all the LDS meetinghouses were far away and salzburg has a crappy, confusing public transportation system (although we did check out a musical mass in the salzburg cathedral).

we tried to find ways to stay busy and warm throughout the day; we ended up reading our books in burger king for a few hours in the afternoon. that night we did one of the coolest things of the trip: we attended a mozart dinner concert.



that's us at the dinner. it was really fancy and so much fun -- we both wished we could have dressed up a little more, but no formal clothes would fit in my one carryon. we had a fantastic three course meal of mozart-era food (my favorite was the warm lemon cream soup...mmm) with performances between each course from a five-piece string orchestra and two opera singers. we were in a historic building right next to st. peter's cathedral in the heart of the old city. definitely memorable.

and a side note: you may notice a gray line on the bottom of some pictures. the day after we got back from europe, i began loading our photos on the computer. as i usually do, i hit the "delete from device" button for after the pictures got transferred. however, our disk space was full so ALL the pictures from austria, switzerland and france ended up in space and got totally deleted. i FREAKED out. luckily, my amazingly techie husband figured out a new software to download that saved all our pictures. unfortunately some of the pictures came back to us with some issues. but that's okay -- i'll take it!