Austria in August...Day 2

Day 2 in Austria was going to be a "Salzburg....Sound of Music" day....and we were excited!

Prior to our trip to Austria I knew little about this country.  I knew this was the birthplace of Mozart and I knew Austria was the setting for "The Sound of Music".  Besides that I knew little else. When I found out we could take a tour to visit locations where the film "The Sound of Music" was filmed, I was excited and ready to go. Mark happily joined me on this day-long journey.

Early Friday morning in Vienna we boarded a train to Salzburg. 

I tried to capture a few pictures outside of our train window....

It was not easy as we sped by....

....but I wanted to remember how beautiful the Austrian countryside is between Vienna and Salzburg.

Arriving at the Salzburg train station 3 hours after we departed Vienna, we walked over to a central area of town....a 10 minute walk and we were at the site for our first tour - a walking tour of Salzburg.  In Houston we've seen decorated cow statues like the one below that was at the starting point of our tours.

Across the street from the tour check-in is a beautiful park...Mirabell Gardens. Since we were early for our tour...we took a short walk and peeked in at these gardens....Without a doubt the Austrians know how to create and maintain absolutely beautiful gardens!

It was here that we first saw sites from where the Sound of Music was filmed...our adventure was starting and I was so excited!  This is one of the fountains where the children were marching around the edge while singing "Do-Re-Mi"....Several scenes were filmed in the gardens of Schloss Mirabell (Mirabell Palace) located on the bank of the Salzach River.

We try to capture ourselves...

Here is a stretch of these beautiful gardens...

Our Salzburg walking tour began on the corner lot near this old church....Kirche St. Andra

With our native Salzburg guide...we reentered the Mirabell Gardens through a different entryway.

It is so much easier to get a picture when someone else is holding the camera...here we are again in front of this "Do-Re-Mi" Pegasus fountain...

On another level of the gardens just above the Pegasus Fountain are a series of little statues...Zwergigarten (Dwarf Garden). The children from the movie danced around and patted the head of this little dwarf statue below while singing "Do-Re-Mi".
Originally there were 28 little dwarves placed in a garden closer to the river, but because of flooding they were placed on higher ground. They are considered part of the city's cultural heritage.

Here is a neighboring dwarf statue...

Here we are at the Ivy-covered archway ...where Maria and the children had fun dancing and running races while exploring the gardens while singing...Do-Re-Mi. I don't know if Mark knew quite what I wanted him to reenact...but we tried!

We are in the middle of the Mirabelle Gardens with the Hohensalzburg Castle in the background.

This is the central fountain in the Mirabell Gardens...Maria and the children were filmed having fun singing and dancing around it. 

A marionette studio....marrionette puppets are quite popular in Europe...and the scene from movie "The Lonely Goathearder" had puppets from some of these studios. Master puppeteers helped the actors work the puppets in the movie.

After leaving the Mirabell Gardens we walked passed the residence of Mozart's family. Mozart was not born at this location...but moved here with his family in 1774 and lived here until he moved to Vienna in 1781. He was just 25 when he moved from Salzburg.

Here is a view of old Salzburg with the fortress above the hillside. I asked our guide why the water in the Salzach River was so brown...and she said because it had rained the night before, the mud and dirt comes from the mountainside into the river.

I would have really liked to have seen the water not brown, but that will hopefully come with another visit.

We crossed over the Salzach River on a pedestrian bridge and entered an older but very beautiful part of Salzburg.

Salzburg's "Old Town" has one of the best city centers north of the Alps...and we were lucky to walk through a few parts of it on our walking tour.

We saw another lock bridge....this is on my bucket list while living in Europe...to place a lock with Mark and my name on it...and then throw the key into the river below.

The Hohensalzburg Castle on the hillside...it overlooks the city of Salzburg and is one of the largest and best preserved castles in Europe.

Hillsides of Salzburg

Can you guess what restaurant is on the other side of this hanging sign?

We walked through a number of narrow streets...and today as well as hundreds of years ago...business' would hang their signs outside their shops like this one below.

McDonald's has been in every European city we have visited.

Here is the birth home of Mozart...Getreidegasse 9...on one of the oldest streets in Salzburg.

This home is now a popular museum. Mozart was born here in 1756 and lived with his family until 1774 when they moved to the larger location known as the Mozart Residence.

Mozart is the favored son of the city of Salzburg...he was born here...and learned to play the piano at age 4 years and performed around Europe at age 7! I have been playing Mozart music almost daily since returning from Austria!

Austrian clothing inside a shop window.
Austrians wear this type of clothing on special occasions in addition to other times as well. The position of the woman's tie on the skirt tells if she is married or single.

A beautiful Austrian church...

Art sculptures outside the music university...each year an art contest is held and below I  took pitutres of recent winners from the past couple of years...

a kneeling person made out of letters...

a row of cucumbers...(I would really like to know what the artist was saying with this creation)...

....and this little simple white building...all award past winners.

This is the Rock Riding School....location of the annual Salzburg Music Festival. It was here that the von Trapp family performed in the competition and then disappeared behind the stage in order to escape Salzburg. 

Inside one of the cathedrals

Here we walked along beside a cathedral...and a cemetary was built right against the side of this hill.

Some of Mozart's family was buried in this small cemetary..St. Peter's Monastery Cemetery. It is here that the von Trapp family attempted to hide themselves from the German soldiers as they were trying to flee Salzburg. Portions of the movie were filmed here also.

As we left the cemetary area, we came to this large water wheel and to one of the oldest still functioning bakeries in the city...

We bought and ate a wonderful fresh piece of bread here... it was delicious!

This is Residenzplatz....it is one of the oldest fountains in the city...and the location where Julie Andrews sang part of the song..."I Have Confidence". She walked around this fountain and splashed water from it...showing some confidence...as she was en route to the Captain's villa.

The two hour walking tour flew by...but we were ready to eat  and then  board our  Sound of Music tour...for the next 4 hours. Our tour guide was wonderful and entertaining and made the 4 hours fly by!

We learned and saw places the film was made, learned how the movie was quite different than the real life story...and also learned that Austrians are not too fond of the movie "The Sound of Music"! Interesting though...the town draws many visitors (like us) who wish to visit the filming locations on tours or alone...so tourism is a big deal in this Austrian city.

We had front row seats...right behind the driver...

We pass another puppeteer location...quite popular here in Austria...

Here is the bridge Julie Andrews/Maria and the children crossed while singing Do-Re-Mi...

We are so close to the Hohensalzburg Castle...this medieval castle's construction first began in 1017...and is one of the best preserved castles today in all of Europe.

This is the backside of the vonTrapp home from the movie and is called Leopold's Crown Palace. It was first built in 1736 for the archbishop and over the years has been owned and lived in by a number of individuals and families.
The lake and backside of the home was used for the terrace scenes as well as when Maria and the children were riding in the boat on the lake.

This view was one of my favorite spots on our tour.

This is the front side of the Von Trapp home in the movie...though we couldn't drive close to it.

Here is the gazebo used from the song "I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen". 

This is Nonnberg Abbey where Maria von Trapp was a nun prior to becoming a governess for the von Trapp children.

As we traveled away from Salzburg... the countryside was so beautiful...
 green and quite peaceful.

The countryside reminded us of traveling through southern Germany last February...but then the land was all covered in snow.

We approached the lake district...just about 30 minutes east of Salzburg...absolutely beautiful lakes, mountains and hillsides...

Atop this peak...is where Maria/Julie Andrews and the children first started singing the "Do-Re-Mi" song...as she was teaching them how to sing.

We came to the little town of....Mondsee on the eastern side of the lake district. It was time for individual breaks...so we explored, ate and took more pictures.
Here is our guide pointing out places for us to check out on our own.

This is the church where in the film the wedding of Maria and Captain von Trapp took place. In real life, they were married at the Nonnberg Abbey where Maria was just learning to become a nun.

Inside the church at Mondsee

 We stopped to eat some apple struedel with vanilla ice cream and some kind of sauce.

It was delicious!

 We had a wonderful full day touring in and around Salzburg...we were tired but we learned and saw much on this 2nd day in Austria.

Before leaving Salzburg....we returned to the Mirabell Gardens and Mark and I posed on the steps where Maria and the children were jumping up and down using the steps like notes on a scale. While we didn't do any jumping Mark and I enjoyed standing on these very steps and overlooking once again these beautiful gardens!

We were gone for a full 15 hours...but wow...we really enjoyed our 2nd day in Austria!