The Sound of Music tour was a four-hour ride through Salzburg and the Austrian countryside.
We looked out the bus windows, remembering and seeing the sites from the 1965 Best Picture film.
As described here, I took the tour on the insistence of family and friends and had a lovely time.
The scenery was spectacular and the stories fun.
The photo on top is of the film mountain the Von Trapp family climbed to escape Austria to Switzerland.
Unfortunately, if you climb the Untersburg, you end up not only in Germany, but in Berchtesgarten–Hitler‘s alpine hideaway.
In reality, the family caught a train to Italy and from there went to America.
In 1938.
But that doesn’t take away from the fun–movies are not real life.
The modern trip
The tour out of town provided spectacular scenery, even on a cloudy day.
We drove an hour to Mondsee, the site of the church where George and Maria married in the film.
A baroque church with all the usual excesses, it seemed bigger in the film. That shot of Maria’s long train following her down the aisle to the altar made it seem huge.
We had 90 minutes in Mondsee. I admired the church, and then wandered into a tourist shop–as I was expected to do while on the tour.
I was hunting a music box that played “Mozart‘s Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” for my astronomer son.
“Mozart didn’t write that,” the shop owner said. “There’s no proof of it, so we don’t have one.”
He didn’t sell me anything.
Our tour guide insisted we try the traditional apple strudel with thick cream at the restaurant across from the church.
Pure decadence!
Finishing up The Sound of Music Tour
We watched The Sound of Music on the bus DVD player all the way back to Salzburg.
We finished the tour on the steps in Mirabel Gardens.
As soon as we saw them, our group began humming: “Doe, a deer, a female deer.”
You’ll know them, too:
Music is in the air in Salzburg, and you’d be singing, too!
Tweetables
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Cool. Was part of the interest the fact that Captain von Trapp was a U-boat commander in WW1?
Of course! And the fact he lived in Trieste prior to WWI (we drove up from there) and his first wife was the daughter of the man who invented the torpedo! 🙂