My first proper day in Salzburg started out inauspiciously
enough, pouring with rain. However that didn’t matter much as I was to spend
the morning on the Original Sound of Music Tour. Bless them, they picked me and
another girl up from the campsite and took us straight into town to the coach,
which felt very luxurious. We were among the first people on the coach and I
couldn’t believe that they could possibly fill it – but sure enough, ten
minutes later, this extra-special, extra-long coach was packed to the gunnels
with fellow Sound of Music enthusiasts. Turns out over 300,000 people come to
Salzburg each year primarily, or only, because of the Sound of Music – and our
huge coach was one of 5 just this company had running that morning, and they
were going to run all 5 again that afternoon. So much for thinking I’d be one
of a handful of tragics!
Tour guide wearing traditional dress.
Dirndls for sale in Mondsee. The bloke's outfit here consists of jeans, however this shop also sold lederhosen.
We first stopped past Schloss Leopoldskron, which was the
wall and gate of the garden in the movie and the lake into which Maria and all
the children fell. Then it was on to Schloss Hellbrunn, which used to be a
hunting lodge for one of Salzburg’s prince-archbishops. The gazebo used in the
movie was originally in the grounds of Schloss Leopoldskron, but because of its
popularity (and the fact that Schloss Leopoldskron is now private property), it
was moved to the public gardens at Schloss Hellbrunn so all and sundry could
visit it.
I thought about throwing myself into the lake in imitation of the boat scene, but it was a cold day and, well, common sense.
16 going on 17
We then headed out of town past the two lakes which you can
see in the opening shots of the movie, and on to a town called Mondsee, and the
basilica minor which was used for the wedding scene.
After that it was back to town for a wander through the
Mirabell Gardens (where many of the scenes from Do, Re, Mi were filmed), and
that was the end of the tour. And yes, we sang, and it was glorious.
One of the lakes from the opening scene of the movie.
Wedding scene. The Captain was waiting on these steps. *sigh*
Do, re, mi ...
By this time it was only around 1pm and the rain had
cleared, so I headed out on the town to see the places which had been mentioned
on the tour but which they weren’t able to get a coachload of people to,
including:
- The cemetery where part of the escape scene was filmed:
St Peter's cemetery
- Nonnberg (the convent), including the church where Maria and Georg were married in real life:
- Residenzplatz (the early part of “I have confidence”)
Stairs up to the catacombs
Creepy.
By then my feet were reminding me they were still a little
delicate, so I bussed it back to camp, picked the car up and went out for a
drive to Untersberg (the biggest mountain in Salzburg’s surrounds, at 1800+
metres high), the road where “I have confidence” was filmed and the building
which was used as the Captain’s home in the movie – it was such fun walking
along the drive out the front of the gates and hearing the gravel crunching
under my feet the way it did in the scene where the von Trapps were trying to
roll the car away from the house without turning the engine on.
I was getting pretty tired by this point, as you can imagine
(driving on the “wrong” side of the road is far less of a challenge than
negotiating foreign cities in peak hour with tiny streets filled with cyclists
and pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages and other cars, all apparently
playing “chicken” with one another), but I particularly wanted to see the von
Trapps’ real home, and I found it a few kilometres away from camp. It looked so
peaceful in the afternoon sunlight – I can only imagine what a terrible wrench
it must have been to leave it in any circumstances, let alone the circumstances
in which it was left (the von Trapps had refused a number of “invitations” by
the Nazis to join their military and knew that if they didn’t leave Austria
under their own volition some of them at least would probably be effectively
press-ganged into working with the Nazis, who they vehemently opposed).
Where it all began: the von Trapps' home in real life.
Phew, what a day!