A Day in Salzburg

While Salzburg may seem like a strange destination, it's actually a pretty popular stop for tourists. My personal agenda was to take a Sound of Music Tour because I grew up watching that movie and I am a huge nerd.

Sunday My alarm went off at 4:30 and for just a couple seconds, I considered not getting up. But of course, I did because the seconds-after-my-alarm-goes-off version of me is often ignored. It was too early to have breakfast at the hotel but I had picked up some sort of German chocolate rolls the night before. I grabbed one as I walked out the door of my hotel room and went down to the lobby. I walked the few blocks to the closest transit station and took a train to the main station in Munich. I had a little trouble finding the platform that my train would be leaving from, but I made it with plenty of time to spare. When the train left the station, I was upset to find out that the first stop was in fact the station closest to my hotel. I really wish that someone would have told me that earlier. I could have slept longer, but at least I knew that I could get off a stop early on the way back. Oddly enough, I had a hard time falling asleep the first part of the trip. Usually I’m out like a light any time I’m in a vehicle, but I just wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t until the last half hour of the trip that I couldn’t stay awake. I woke up to an empty train except for one nice lady telling me something in German. I apologized and she explained that we had arrived in Salzburg. She was clearly worried that I had slept through my stop, but I smiled and thanked her. It was about 7:45 and I didn’t have to be at the meeting point until 9:15 so I had plenty of time. I bought some sort of apple pastry and sat down to figure out where I was going. The meeting place was only about a 15 minute walk so I was in no hurry. Later that morning, I arrived at a small kiosk that read Panorama Tours, Home of the Original Sound of Music Tour. I showed the guy my receipt online and he gave me a ticket to get on the bus. After waiting about twenty minutes, a bus showed up and after about ten more minutes, they instructed us to get on. We started off by going to the lake that was the backdrop for a lot of scenes in the movie. The tour guide, David, explained how they built a replica of the terrace connected to one of the houses on the lake for filming and how the littlest girl who played Gretel almost drowned during the scene where Maria and all the kids fall off the boat into the water. The best part of that story was that after that accident, she was so scared and upset that all the crew on the movie were buying her a bunch of sweets and she gained so much weight that Christopher Plummer said, “I’m not carrying that fat little girl over the mountain,” and they literally had to find a double for the little girl so that they could shoot the ending scene of the movie. After the lake, we drove by the iconic house with the huge courtyard out front that is seen at the very end of I Have Confidence and when they are pushing the car to escape and end up running into the Nazis. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to drive up close to the house due to various laws about the private road, but it was hard to miss the yellow walls and giant gate. We stopped close by and saw one of the pergolas that was used during the movie. It was famous for the song Sixteen Going on Seventeen. There were three different pergolas built, all different sizes, and the larger two are in Hollywood. The smallest was left as a gift in Salzburg and is obviously a fairly popular tourist attraction. We drove through the town again and saw the abbey as we headed out to the countryside. After a while, we stopped on the side of a mountain that had an amazing view of one of the lakes that was filmed in the very opening scenes of the movie. We kept driving along the lake and came to a town called Mondsee. This is where the church that they shot the wedding of Maria and The Captain is. We had about and hour to see the church, grab something to eat at one of the little cafes, and do a little souvenir shopping. After I ate a frankfurter and drank a Radler, I skipped out on shopping and walked an extra block to the lake. I’m glad I did because it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. After our short time in the village, we got back on the bus and took the highway back to Salzburg. They took us to the garden when the majority of Do Rey Me was filmed and pointed out the six important features from the scene; two fountains, the green archway, a statue, and the stairs where the song ends. After that, the tour was over. I still had about six hours to kill before my train left for Munich, so I decided to walk around. I crossed the river and walked through a lot of old streets and shops. I saw a fortress at the top of a hill and decided to hike up to it. The view over the city was definitely worth it. I climbed back down, grabbed a pretzel the size of my face, and headed back to the gardens. I sat there for awhile just to people-watch, and walked back to the train station. I got back to Munich around 9:30.