These are a Few of My Favorite Things... (Salzburg, Austria)

We visited Salzburg, Austria and did a Sound of Music bike tour!

I have wanted to do a Sound of Music tour since I found out it was possible to see where the movie was filmed. The Sound of Music is very important to my family-it was the first movie my dad ever saw in theaters, it's is his favorite movie, and he and I danced to "Edelweiss" for our father/daughter dance at our wedding. The von Trapp family has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.

We took a train from Munich to Salzburg. It was about an hour and a half journey and very easy (especially using a Bavarian train ticket). We arrived in Salzburg, walked to the meeting point, and chose our bikes. Our tour had 8 people-2 couples from the Netherlands, an Indian couple, and us. The tour guide said this is highly unusual-80% of her tours or more are people from the United States!

The Sound of Music was and is not popular in Austria-many people have never seen the movie or just know about it because of the tours. The movie was mainly popular in the USA, UK, Netherlands, and Australia. People in Germany and Austria don't have nearly the fondness for this classic as I do!

Our first stop on the tour was the garden behind Mirabell Palace. This is where Maria and the children run through, singing Do Re Mi. You could even see the covered arches where they walked. In front of us in the photo below are the steps where they learn to sing.

The Salzburg River is very important historically, as it was used to transport salt from the mines out to be sold when this was the major industry. Now, there's a nice path along the water that people use (and we biked along!). 

This was the location where Rolf reads a letter from the Nazi party. Our tour guide let us know that Rolf and Leisel are completely made up characters-the oldest von Trapp child in real life is a boy. The actor who played Rolf was not cast for his acting, but his singing and dancing. The Sound of Music was one of his only acting roles-he went on to open a dance studio with his fame from the movie.

Across from this building is the theater where they filmed the final von Trapp performance in the movie. This was supposed to be part of the Festspiele, a real festive that happens every summer in Salzburg (it was happening while we were there!). However, the movie filmed in the winter and the extras (people from Salzburg) had to fill the open air theater. I'm sure they were cold! They also had to learn the words from the songs in the movie so the audience could sing with the von Trapps family as they left. The Festspiele still takes place in this theater now!

Attached to the front of our bikes, we had cards with scenes from the movie. It was so cool to look down at these familiar scenes, then look up and see the real thing right in front of us. 

Our guide told us that there was a lot of controversy about filming the scene with the giant Nazi flag. They filmed the movie in 1964, so many people had strong memories from the war and didn't want that shown. However, the director went to the city officials and threatened to use archival footage with real people (who were still alive and in Salzburg) cheering for the Nazis, so the city gave in and let him shoot the scene early in the morning quickly. The guide told us they had to have production assistants around telling people that nothing alarming was happening-can you imagine?!

The real Maria von Trapp also made her cameo in the movie behind Julie Andrews as she walked through the arches. I always think it's interesting where the real person shows up in a movie made about them!

We took a break from riding our bikes and were able to visit the cemetery that was the inspiration for the cemetery in the movie. They were unable to film here out of respect, but the set looked a lot like this (even down to the arched gated area in the back!). 

Next came the toughest part of the bike ride-climbing the hill up to the abbey! 

The photo below is the mountain that Maria is supposed to be singing on at the beginning of the movie. There's definitely some movie magic here-no way did she get back to the abbey quickly after hearing the bells ring! It was so beautiful to look out and see all these mountains, as well as the town of Salzburg below them.

Right across from me in the picture above is the real abbey where Maria von Trapp lived. She and the Captain really did get married here. Nuns still live at this abbey today.

In the movie, they filmed the outside parts of the abbey here, but used a different church that was more grand for the indoor shots of the wedding. They filmed the children and Maria through the gate and you can see where they cut a hole in it, as well as soldered it back together. In the movie, you can also see a bell outside the abbey, but the nuns eventually had to take it down because of all the tourists visiting and causing disruptions by ringing it.

This is the back of the von Trapp's house! They filmed the kids and Maria falling into the water here (even though it was winter!) and the actress who played Gretl almost drowned because she didn't know how to swim and the other kids didn't grab her as she fell in!

This building is a hotel and it is where all the actors stayed when they came to film the movie. They also used to have the gazebo from the movie, but it had to be moved because all the tourists were disrupting hotel operations trying to visit it!

We got out of the city and rode our bikes through the countryside. Our guide had a bluetooth speaker and I volunteered to hold it in my bike basket, while it played the soundtrack. We rode for awhile and reached the building that was used as the front of the von Trapp home (in the movie). Now, it's a dormitory for international students.

The real home where the von Trapp family lived in is outside of Salzburg. However, it's a private residence and we didn't go see it. 

We rode our bikes to a large park, the garden of the Schloss Hellbrun. This was where the gazebo from the movie was moved. There were two gazebos built for the movie-one is in Austria, the other was in California. You can tell the difference because the benches are different-one has curved ends and the other are cut straight.

Unfortunately, the gazebo is locked and you cannot go in, because people have fallen trying to recreate the 16 going on 17 jumps between benches. But it was still fun to look at!

The rest of this park has nothing to do with the Sound of Music, but it was a very pretty area to ride our bikes around! We explored a bit, looking at the pools and gardens, then headed back into Salzburg to return the bikes with our tour guide. 

A Sound of Music tour has been on my list of things to do for a long time! If you're ever anywhere near Salzburg, I would highly recommend it. Not only did we get to see the sites where the Sound of Music was filmed, we learned more about the history of Salzburg and got to ride 14 miles on the bikes! The evening tour was perfect and we really enjoyed our time in this memorable city.