Salzburg and the Sound of Music

We spent the day in Salzburg, Austria, a smallish city of about 150,000 which is home to most of the set of the Sound of Music, Mozart, and some very old parts of town. When I say "very old," an example is that the Nonnberg Abbey featured in the Sound of Music was founded in the 700s! Ryan, Nancy, and I decided to take the official original (sometimes obnoxious) Sound of Music tour while Tim and Kathy walked with Sydney around the old town. Our tour was 4 hours long, narrated by cheesy jokes, interesting facts, and a lot of coverage of the country. It was definitely worth it. We traveled up the mountain to the wedding chapel which was used for the film for their wedding. It was gorgeous, but our favorite thing was eating warm apple strudel with ice cream in the little cafe just across the street from the Basilica. 

Sydney made a friend from Afghanistan. At the Mirabell Gardens (one place where they sang "Do-Re-Mi")

A pedestrian bridge they ran across singing "Do-Re-Mi"

Leopoldskron Palace (where they filmed the backyard, lake, and gazebo scenes)

Ahh, the gazebo. Please refer to some of the fun facts about the gazebo. :)

The red roof is the Abbey

Riding up into the mountain/lake region just above Salzburg

Selfie on the tour bus

Peter, our cheesy, but very good, tour guide

The Mondsee "Wedding"- Basilica

A view of the inside- or you could just watch the movie again

Crisp (warm) apple strudel 

The delicious strudel came from this cute cafe

Interesting Tidbits

• Did you know that Gretel, the little girl, almost drown on the second take of the scene where they fall into the lake? She was supposed to keep a hold of Maria's hand but they fell out on opposite sides of the boat that time. 
• They would have shot all the scenes of the inside of the house except they could not get permission to bring their camera equipment into the old palaces for fear that they would damage something. So they had artists come from Hollywood who then were able to recreate the rooms on the Hollywood set. 
• The gazebo was given as a gift from Fox to the conference center (former palace) where the lake and outside balcony scenes were shot. Despite their initial excitement for the gazebo, it was a huge downside to have tourists climbing over the wall and disrupting their meetings with dancing across the benches in the gazebo. They moved it to a local park for easier access, and then eventually had to close the gazebo because an 80 year old woman broke her hip trying to jump from bench to bench. 
• The front of that same palace by the lake was not used for the house because there were too many trees to see how big it was. So they filmed the outside of a different palace for those shots and this palace is not even close to the lake. 
• The mountain which they filmed Maria climbing and the family escaping was about 10 km away from the town of Salzburg. Our guide said she was a true athlete to be able to get back to the Abbey in 3 minutes. 
• The mountain leads, not to Switzerland and safety, but rather to Germany and danger. In reality, the family put on hiking clothes and went on a walk down a familiar path but only 5 minutes to the train station.
• The family really did win the music contest shown in the film. They were given many business cards at the contest from people from all around Europe. These Europeans let the Trapps know that they would be interested in hosting performances if the family was ever in their area. The Trapp's Uncle Max was a stanch Nazi, but he loved their family and helped them to escape. Captain Von Trapp then used those business cards after they escaped to earn enough money to get passage to the United States. In the US, they continued to tour to get enough money to live. They eventually settled in Vermont. 

If you find any differences in what I've just described and Wikipedia, I'd go with Wiki. :) I am just recollecting what our guide told us. He had a way of saying things tongue in cheek. We always joked that we watched the Sound of Music every Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma's house. In reality, we probably just talked about it every year. It really was a masterpiece of a movie with some pretty enduring and endearing songs.