The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music!

The next day we headed into Salzburg. At this point, we realized that we might never make it home at the pace we were going so we decided ahead of time that we would just try to find the “Do, re, mi” steps and some of the sites in Salsburg where they had filmed the musical, “The Sound of Music” since it is a favorite of ours. Upon pulling into town we discovered that we weren’t the only ones with this idea in mind. We followed this bus thinking that it might lead us in the right direction, but instead it pulled into the tourist station. So we ended up deciding that it would save us a lot of time to take the family on the “Sound of Music Tour”.
Join us as we tour through Salzburg:
This first shot is the back side of the Leopoldskron Palace. It was this beautiful building that the movie crew planned to use for the Von Trapp family mansion, but unfortunately, the back yard and lake were the only parts actually used in the filming of the movie. MGM had made arrangements with the Austrian government to use this palace for all the inside shots and their crew had brought in all their generators, equipment, props, make-up, people and extras, etc, etc, etc. Eventually it became too much for the Austrian government, and just before the filming of the ball, they shut the whole thing down. Instead, all of the inside shots were actually filmed in Hollywood studios which were designed after the home . Another beautiful house was used as the outside of the Von Trapp family home, so you can imagine how difficult it must have been to film these outside portions of the movie. Think about the scene just after the boat has capsized and Maria and the Barron are arguing together. All of the shots of Julie Andrews have the lake in the background, and all of the shots of the Baron have the house behind him! (Filmed in two different locations.) Funny, huh!
Now picture in your mind the scene where Maria is dressed in those horrible clothes, with her guitar in her hand, singing “I have confidence in me!” as she approches her new assignment of being the new governess to the VonTrapps. She comes to the big gates of this home, which doesn’t look quite as grand from our far-off viewpoint on the bus. The lane of trees that the children were swinging from in their “playclothes” is also just outside of this house. I don’t remember the name of it, sorry.


Here we are posing outside the glass gazebo which is so well-known for the Liesle/Rolf duet, “I am Sixteen, going on Seventeen.” This gazebo was actually built by MGM outside of the Leopoldskronfirst Palace. The Austrian government liked it so much that it was left for them when there once the filming was over. They loved the new addition to the palace so much, that is until the area became inundated with people climbing the Palace walls to visit it, singing and dancing and leaping from bench to bench. They eventually decided to move it to another area for the tourists to enjoy. They also welded the doors shut, so that people would stop hurting themselves leaping from bench to bench. Darn, and we would have been so good at it!

These next pictures are of Nonnberg Abbey (with the red dome) where the real Maria really did study and where she and the Barron were married in real life. It is still a working Abbey and the nuns really do sing there in the evenings, but it is not opened to the public.

Next our tour bus headed up into the mountains where “the hills are alive” . This was so beautiful! The 70 glacier fed lakes are picturesque, and keep everyone playing there nice and cool.
This is the little town of Hoth . There were several little Maypoles in people's yards which were all ready for the summer solstice celebration coming up in a few days.

And this is Lake Fuschl, with it’s neighboring town. It had a really picturesque view so we all posed seperately for some pics. (Jess and I hate ours of course.) The lake is 7 miles long and here is also where Mozart’s Mother was born. You see, music really has been an important part of this area’s history. In fact, Mozart’s birthplace is also in Salzburg. The music festival that the Von Trapp family won many years ago has been a tradition in that city for over 200 years. The Character of Uncle Max was totally fictional in the Von Trapp story, but it was based on a real man named Max_ ?_ who originally began the music festival there. He was Jewish and fled from Austria at the beginning of the 2nd World War, several years before the Von Trapp’s fled.









Then we were herded back onto the bus to continue the ever upward journey into the beautiful hills to the next little town which I don't remember the name, but it is home to a beautiful cathedral--the one used to film the wedding in the movie. Before going off to visit the church, Pete was in the mood for the really yummy desserts that were famous for that town, so we stopped to eat two meatball soups (mom insisted that we couldn't just eat junk food) and a yummy cake with hot white chocolate drizzled over it. It was yummy, much better then the meatballs. I think mom managed to get everyone to take just one bite of the meat before they devoured their desert. It is easy to see why this cathedral was chosen, and I'm sure it has been kept in pristine condition because of all the tourists who file through here. As I was walking around the church I remember thinking that the movie made the wedding isle appear much longer then it actually is in real life, but now that I'm looking at our pictures, they do the same thing. It is actually a fairly medium sized cathedral, but appears bigger in the pictures. It really was beautiful.

You can see Paul trying to climb the steps to the alter be married, or perhaps to receive redemption for his sins which were starting to accumulate by this point as he was becoming quite unmanagable.

Unfortunately he was yet unwilling to fall asleep on the bus trip back down to the city of Salzburg, and so when we arrived in the famous gardens he was really really unmanagable! We managed to still miraculously get a few good pictures. The gardens here I also don't remember their name, but most of the song, "Do Re Mi" was filmed here. We had a fun time exploring all the different sites that we recognized. Maybe you'll recognize a few. The whole garden is really beautiful.

The Von Trap children marched around this big circular fountain and it took us forever to catch 2 seconds for a picture on those Do Re Mi steps with all the tourists walking up and down.

Then I have a whole series of these cute little stone trolls. The Von Tramp children all marched by and tapped this one troll on the head in the movie, so we posed for a family shot here. But there were so many other cute trolls that even though it was getting too late in the day that we had promised to make really short, we just couldn't stop having fun posing with these cute little guys and gals. For some reason Paul seemed to really make a connection with these miniture little monsters, they really cheered him up. I'll try to add a slideshow of all the troll pictures.

Please someone help me

I have a slideshow saved on

Photobucket but I can't figure out

how to get it onto the blog here!

Please comment!

Sadly, the time came for us to say, "So long,farewell, etc....." But our trip to Salzburg kept us singing....

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do so DO! (I know, we are absolutely cheesy!!)