Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a real theater lover. From an early age of being in shows (the first one was “110 in the Shade” with my mom at age 7); to seeing countless musicals in venues from local theater to Broadway; to spending hours listening to soundtracks (I can sing every line from Evita). So how could I not be excited to do the “Sound of Music” tour from Salzburg??
Never mind we had travelled from Prague to Munich the day before and it would take us 2 hours each way via train to get to Salzburg. Never mind that Jason had a suspicion that we would spend a bunch of time on the bus. This is one of the things that I was so looking forward to doing!
In my mind we would re-create all of the scenes around town, in the family house and on the beautiful alps where I would spin around and sing, “The Hills are Alive – with the Sound of Music!” Why else would the tour be so long?
Here is how it really went down:
There were LOTS of places to see around and near town – we just couldn’t get OFF the bus to see them. The line the first hour was – “This is the XX place where the famous XX scene happened. But we can’t get off the bus to see it. Soooo take a photo……not yet….wait for that tree…now!
Here is a picture of the front of the famous Von Trapp house. Funny things happened such as Julie Andrews tripping while walking into the gate when signing “Confidence” It was used in the film. But someone lives there and so we just took a picture from the bus.
Here is a picture of the famous Abby where the kids go to see the nuns to inquire about Maria. We couldn’t get off to see that but here is a picture when we slowly went around the circle. Click!
Here is the mountain that they filmed to show the Alps they walked over to escape to freedoms. However, that specific mountain goes directly to Germany so…they actually would have been walking right into the Nazi’s hands….oops, never mind, the bus went by too fast to capture that photo!
There were also photo ops of things that sounded cool but actually were like – SERIOUSLY?
Here is a picture of the smallest of 3 gazebos used in the famous 16 going on 17 song. It was one place, then another and finally moved to a random park. We had about 30 seconds each to take a picture. You can’t actually go in because some old lady tried to recreate the scene and her youth by jumping from bench to bench and then fell – breaking both her hip and the glass. So this is what you get!
Here is a picture of the back of the Von Trapp house (a different house than the one that was used for the front of the house) from a ridiculously long view.
A bunch of interesting trivia. The most disturbing piece of trivia was that the actress who played little Gretel didn’t know how to swim. When she fell into the water in back of the house when the Captain sees the kids in play clothes made from drapes for the first time, Julie Andrews was supposed to grab little Gretel. On the final take, Julie lost her balance, the little girl fell in the other direction and almost drowned. To make her feel better EVERYONE in Salzburg sent her sweets. Apparently no one was monitoring this little 7 year old girl and she gained a ton of weight. When Christopher Plummer was preparing to film the last scene of the family climbing over the alps, he said that he was not carrying the “fat girl” on his back. So her double was called into action and if you look closely, you can’t see the face of little Gretel in the end – on purpose!
Here is beautiful scenery that was used in several landscape photos. Since we were somehow running short on time (with almost no stops and several drive bus) – we had 2 minutes to jump out, take the photo and get back into the bus.
* The really big stop was at the church used in the wedding. The tour company must have some kick back deal with this quaint little town because we did have 50 minutes for this stop. Now the church was really pretty but I don’t know how a stop for apple straddle and coffee fits into the movie. I think at one point the Baroness was offered a piece by max and she said Cook is going to ruin my waistline!” That would make about as much sense as the rest of the tour. Here’s a pretty picture of the church:
The winning moment of the tour was at the very end of 4 hours. We got off the bus and went over to the very place where the tour started – Mirabella Gardnes – where Do-Re-Mi was filmed. Our guide did point out the 5 places to recreate our own scenes. But seriously – could we have just done this in the beginning — slipped him 20 Euro and saved us all time and money? And he failed the SOM fanatic test. I asked him which direction they went on the fountain and where they excited ( to be as authentic as possible in our recreation). I stumped him and he said he would have to go home and watch that scene again.
But it was super fun to recreate the scenes, like this one:
My final assessment: I think I could totally disrupt the SOM tour market by creating an app for a self guided tour and pair it with songs to sing along from the movie. $4.99 and save lots of money for a family!
But in the end – the kids LOVED the tour and even though it was the most touristy of things we have done so far – it was a great day.
Mary is our Sherpa Momma, carrying water bottles, sunscreen, snacks, tissues and more in her backpack. But, thankfully, no diapers. She's really just looking forward to having a rest. When she's' not tired, she's an aspiring coffeehouse singer / guitarist.
One thought on “The Sound of Music: Sights from a Bus”
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Well… churches could always use money (as opposed to the owners of the estates).
Glad you all are having such an amazing time.
BTW I’d dampen my your expectations before going to the cistene chapel….