April 13

4-13
Ok, Salzburg. This was my favorite city, so brace yourselves for a long post! J
I arrived in Salzburg around 11:45 or so and went straight on to my hostel to drop my stuff. I gathered up some brochures and my map and planned a few things out as far as where I wanted to go and where they were in the city. Then I had about an hour before my first tour started, so I walked around a bit close to my hostel. There was a street nearby with a bunch of shops that I peeked into. There was one, and I saw several more later on, that sold traditional Austrian garb. There were lederhosen for the guys and those cute little dresses for the girls. Watch the music festival scene and the final scene of Sound of Music and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. It was so cool! I was so tempted to get one, but they were way too expensive. So I took pictures and I’m going to make my own! Much cheaper and much more fun that way. I also went into St. Sebastian’s church, which is where Mozart’s family is buried, if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t see the graveyard, just the sanctuary. As this was holy week, in most of the churches I went in the altars were covered with a purple cloth. Do they do that in churches in the States? I know in ours we just drape a cloth across the crosspiece of the cross, but don’t actually cover it up. Hm. I don’t know.
My first tour picked me up at the hostel at quarter to 2 and took me to the meeting place. It was a Bavarian mountains tour, and I think I was the only person on it younger than 40. Wait; there might have been one other guy who was upper 20s. There were only about 8 of us, and we were in a big van that drove up into the mountains. Not just mountains; Alps. We crossed the boarder into Germany (or rather Bavaria, since the guide told us that Bavarians don’t like to think of themselves as Germans), and spent most of the time there. It was so gorgeous. The most mountains I’ve ever seen have been in the Rockies when we went to Colorado ages and ages ago (I think I was probably about 12), but I don’t remember them being nearly as beautiful as these. As we drove closer to them, there were still patches of snow on the ground, and when we started going up there was as much as 2 feet of snow! We got out several places to admire the scenery. The tour was supposed to include a trip to the Eagle’s Nest, which was Hitler’s house in the mountains, but since it’s so early in the year we couldn’t get up there. I guess the road is very narrow and we would have had to take a shuttle bus, and I think there was still too much snow and ice on the road. But we could see it from a distance. At one place we walked out on the top of the snow to get a better view of it. There was a little stream running through the valley, filled with snowmelt, and I went up closer to get a good look at it. I was still about 4 feet away, when I went right through the snow! This was probably not quite a foot high, but it was high enough that I couldn’t get my feet out without them sinking right back in. I fell back on the snow and rolled over to get up. Everyone was like: oh, are you ok, and I was just laughing because I’m sure I looked like a fool! I’m just glad I wasn’t any closer to the stream or I would have fallen in. Or dropped my camera in. That would have been tragic!
There are so many cute little towns up in the mountains that we drove through, with houses that look like they belong in one of those Christmas villages. In at least one of the towns all the houses have names. I don’t know if it’s the name of the family living there, but on almost every house it said Haus something or other. We stopped in one town for about an hour. I wish I could remember the name of it. Something about a king, I think. All the buildings were different colors and so cute. There was one building, which was pink, which had been kept in its original state since the 1600s.
One of our stops was this beautiful glacier-fed lake with absolutely crystal clear water, surrounded by mountains. It was breathtaking. There was a bobsled track there, which I had no interest in, but our guide led us up to the top. The only interesting thing was that there was a better view from the top than from the lakeshore, but the guide seemed to have some kind of fascination with the bobsled and talked a lot about it. Anyway, the lake was so clear that I could see a log on the bottom at least 20 feet out from the shore. There was a boat tour that would take you out, and in the middle of the lake they cut the motor and play a trumpet so you can hear it echoing around all the mountains. But, of course, we couldn’t do that because we were already on a tour.
When we got back to Salzburg it was almost 6, so everything was getting ready to close. I went to the Mirabell Palace, which I thought was going to be an actual palace you can go visit. Actually, it’s where the government meets, so a visit isn’t worth it. The important thing at Mirabell is the garden right behind it. The Mirabell Gardens are like a small park with a Pegasus fountain and lots of statues. It’s the place where a lot of the scenes in Do Re Mi in the Sound of Music were filmed. (I didn’t realize that until after I took the Sound of Music tour the next day, so then of course I had to go back!) I walked around the city for a while. I saw the Kapitalplatz, and Universitatsplatz, where there’s a big market, and Residenzplatz, and a bunch of other plazas with fountains and statues. I went back to the hostel around 7 and went to their restaurant/bar for dinner. There weren’t very many people there except for me, the bartender, who was a boy a little younger than I from Australia, and a girl about my age at the bar (she was from Montana). I sat at the bar with them and talked for a couple hours about random stuff. Then I went back to my room to plan out the next day. After a while the girl from the bar came in: she was staying in my room! We talked a bit more before we went to bed.
The next morning I had the Sound of Music tour at 9, and I wanted to go see the Cathedral before then, so I got up early. The girl (whose name is Susanne, I later found out) asked me if she could tag along with me that day since she didn’t have any plans. I didn’t really have a problem with that, so she bought a ticket to the tour, which she had also wanted to do, and we set off for the Cathedral. I think I had gotten a bit spoiled from traveling alone for the past two days, because it kinda drove me nuts the way she walked a step or two behind me the whole time. I don’t know if I set a quick pace or what, but I kind a felt like I was dragging her along. But we only had about 45 minutes to walk to the Cathedral, see the inside, and be back to the hostel for the tour pick up. No time to dawdle! We got a bit turned around and walked all the way around the cathedral before we realized that’s what it was. This cathedral was a little different than others I had seen. Instead of a stone ceiling and walls, this one was broken up with paintings all the way up, surrounded by white plaster or something molded into scrolls and flowers and things.
We didn’t have time to get all the way back to the hostel for the tour pick up, so we went directly to the meeting point, which was closer anyway. Apparently the Sound of Music tour is a lot more popular than the mountain tour, because we had a huge coach bus full of people. This tour was so much fun! For those of you who don’t know, Sound of Music has always been one of my favorite movies ever. My mom likes to tell the story of when I was about 3 years old watching it. While Maria and the children were running over the mountains singing Do Re Mi I started crying. When mom asked what was wrong, I pointed at the screen and said “I want to be there.” I have always wanted to go to Austria because of the beautiful scenery in that movie. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a little choked up when I actually was there. In fact, I’m getting a little teary even now. That’s the silly thing about fulfilling lifelong dreams: I get too emotional.
Anyway, the tour focused mostly on the sites from the movie that were filmed outside of the city center, with the assumption that we could see those ones on our own. We started out still in Salzburg, but a little farther away. Our first stop was Schloss Leopoldskron, which was the back of the Von Trapp mansion, with the lawn down to the lake. It’s private property, so we could only see it from across the lake, but it was beautiful. Seeing all these things made me realize it’s been several years since I saw Sound of Music, and I wished I had seen it more recently so it would be fresher in my mind. (The hostel shows it every day, but it’s at 10am and it’s a 3 hour movie, so that means you have to miss the prime time of day touring Salzburg to see it. Not worth it!)
We drove by Schloss Frohnberg, which is the bright yellow front of the mansion and the wall along which Maria is singing I Have Confidence when she stops at the gate at the first sight of the mansion. It was set pretty far back from the road, and, again, it’s private property, so we didn’t get to see it up close. But it was still exciting for an enthusiast like me! J
As we were driving through Salzburg the guide pointed out the mountain on which Maria is singing in the opening scene. It’s called Untersberg. Or maybe that was the one at the end when they’re fleeing to Switzerland. I can’t remember. In any case, at the beginning of the movie Maria runs down the mountain and back to the abbey in just a few minutes. In reality, that mountain is about 3 km (I think that’s what he said) away from Salzburg, so Maria would have been the fastest woman in the world! And the mountain at the end, which they’re supposedly crossing to get into Switzerland, actually boarders Germany. So they’re going in the wrong direction to escape the Nazis! Of course, none of this makes a whit of difference in how I feel about the movie. It’s just funny.
We stopped at Schloss Hellbrunn to see the famous glass gazebo. It was originally next to Leopoldskron, behind a wall. When my mom went to Salzburg the only reason she was able to see it was because she was high up on a bus and could see it over the wall. But in the intervening years they moved it because too many people were climbing over into the private property. So now it’s in Hellbrunn and we were able to go right up to it! It’s small! They used this one only for the outside shots, and then built a half gazebo for the inside shots so they could fit cameras and stuff. It’s a cute little gazebo, with, of course, the benches lining the insides. Mom asked if I went in; actually it never occurred to me. I don’t know if we could, though. No one did anyway.
The bus headed out to the town of Mondsee, which is about a half hour out of Salzburg. The church there, St. Michaels I think, is where they filmed the wedding scene. They didn’t do it in Nonnberg Abbey because it was too small and they couldn’t get all the equipment inside. So they did it there instead. We got about an hour to explore the church and the town. It’s a beautiful church. Inside, the walls are all white with pink molding, so it looks a little bit like a dollhouse. At least, it would if you took out all the churchy stuff inside. While I was in there taking pictures, my camera said there was no more room on my memory stick! I had filled it up in only 5 days!! Luckily I had another one, but 5 days!! I’m going to have to buy like 3 more for my month long trip in May!
On the way to Mondsee we stopped at what was one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever seen in my life. I looked back at my pictures and they just don’t do it justice. We were up on a hill looking over a valley. There was a little town in the foreground, and beyond that a lake, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The lake was bright blue, and reflected the mountains around it. It was breathtaking. I don’t know what it had to do with Sound of Music, but I think we stopped just because it would have been a shame to miss it. Absolutely gorgeous.
That was pretty much the end of the tour, and on they way back they just played the soundtrack. Of course, a bunch of people were singing along. I remembered for the umpteenth time that I somehow don’t have the Sound of Music soundtrack on my computer. How I made such a glaring oversight, I’ll never know, but now I have to wait until I get home to correct it, and by that time I’ll probably have forgotten again. They also played a bit of a documentary about the filming of the movie 40 years later hosted by the woman who played Liesl. It showed a bunch of the places we had just seen and didn’t have too much new info, but it was interesting.
Back in Salzburg, I wanted to go see Festung Hohensalzburg, which is the Salzburg Fortress. I asked Susanne if she wanted to come along, phrasing it in such a way that she was welcome, but it was clear that I was going to do what I wanted to do whether or not she came. She decided to come, so we made our way over there. The fortress is up on a huge cliff, so you have to either walk up a very steep path or take a funicular. We chose the funicular. It was a really cool building. It’s over 900 years old, and you can walk through the galleries, the torture chamber, and state rooms. There’s a museum of more modern history, mostly about the 20th century, which I wasn’t very interested in. But they had some armor and swords and stuff that I liked better. J We could also go to the top of the tower, where there’s an amazing view of the city and the mountains. You get the added height from the tower and the mountain the fortress is on, so you’re up really high. It’s beautiful.
In the fortress complex there’s also a little church and what remains of the original chapel from hundreds of years ago. There’s also a marionette museum, which was fun to see. It was very small; just a couple of rooms with displays of plays or operas that were put on with marionettes. They had a set up from Mozart’s Magic Flute, von Weber’s Oberon, and several plays I didn’t recognize. They had a film playing of one of the shows, and it was amazing how coordinated the puppets were. I don’t know how the puppeteers get so much control over them!
After the fortress, Susanne said she wanted to go see this famous beer brewery and asked if I wanted to come. I had less than zero interest in that, so we parted. I was going to go the Residenz, which is the royal palace, but it was closed for state functions, so I couldn’t go in. Instead, I went to Mozart’s birthplace. Yep, more Mozart! It was another museum with a lot of portraits and scores and stuff. This one focused more on his family, since he only lived there until he was about 4 I believe. In the room where he was born, there’s a pendant that has a lock of Mozart’s hair. Mozart’s hair! That was cool. There were also little models of scenery for several of his operas, including Die Zauberflote and Don Giovanni. There was one room where everything was upside down. I have no idea why, but it was interesting. There was a mini model of Salzburg and the surrounding mountains on the ceiling, and stars on the floor. All the pictures of churches and buildings around Salzburg on the walls were hung upside down. It was very strange. According to the brochure it’s to reflect Mozart’s urge to turn everything upside down and see things differently. Whatever. I think maybe they just had an extra room and needed to invent something to do with it.
After that I decided to follow the little brochure they gave us on the tour with all the Sound of Music sites within the city. I went to lots of the places where they filmed parts of Do Re Mi: the Mozart foot bridge, the banks of the River Salzach, the Horse’s Pond statue, University Square, and the place in Residenz Square where you can hire horse-drawn carriage rides. I also went back to Mirabell Gardens for all the places there. There are two fountains, the Pegasus fountain and another, that they all walk around while they’re singing. There’s also the dwarf garden figures, one of which they all pat on the head as they pass, and the athletic figures, which are statues of fist fighters whose poses the children imitate. Most of these things are in such short segments that you would never remember them all if you didn’t have a specific reason. I also saw and walked through the hedge covered archway that they all dance through. And, of course, the steps they climb at the end of the song for the big finish. All little things, but still exciting for me!
I went to the fountain that Maria splashes water in during I Have Confidence, but it was all covered up for construction or restoration or something, so I couldn’t see it. I also went up to Nonnberg Abbey, which is Maria’s abbey. Visitors aren’t allowed in the abbey part, only in the church. I went in, of course. It was a very pretty little church, but I could immediately see why they didn’t film the wedding scene here, even though that was where Maria and the Captain were actually married. It was too small for all the filming equipment. When I went out I walked a little bit along the outside walls looking for the entrance gates. I was the only person around except for a teenage boy who was hanging around and looked kind of like a punk. I got a little nervous so I decided just to leave. So I’m not really sure if I saw it or not. After that I went to St. Peter’s Abbey, which houses the cemetery where the von Trapps hide from the Nazis. I didn’t actually realize it was the same place until I had already left and saw it on the list of places in my pamphlet. So I didn’t find the exact place where it was, but it doesn’t really matter.
Last on the list was the festival hall. I followed my map and found what I think was it, but it wasn’t called the same thing. At least not that I saw. So I’m not entirely sure if I was in the right place. I couldn’t go inside to see. But whatever. I saw so many things that I’m not upset if I missed one.
It was getting towards dark and I didn’t really have anything left to do, so I went back to my hostel, gathered my things, and headed off to the train station. I took a domestic train to Villach, and from there a night train on to Milan. It was a pretty sweet setup: I got a bed and I was the only one in my little (and I mean tiny!) room. There was even a little sink and a mirror, and a place to hang things up. I hadn’t intended to take a night train; I only did because it was the only time any train was available. But I’m glad I did. That way I got more time in each of the places instead of wasting a whole day traveling.
I arrived in Milan in the morning, and I’ll continue this story in the next post!