Greetings from Salzburg! Dani and I were conflicted about taking the day trip to Salzburg from Vienna for a while. We did not want to miss out on seeing Vienna, but we also really wanted to see Salzburg. Ultimately, our obsession with The Sound of Music won out and we spent Saturday October 26th exploring the city. Salzburg was the most beautiful city, so its safe to say that we were thrilled with our decision. Saturday: Our day started slightly early with a train from Vienna Westbahnhof to Salzburg at 9:43 am. The train was just over 2 hours long. For a while we were slightly nervous since it was super foggy, but as we made our way to Salzburg the fog let up, turning into a beautiful day. The Austrian countryside was absolutely beautiful. The trees were changing colors with rolling green farmland and the bluest of sky. I've turned into such a Fall person! Once we arrived in Salzburg, we walked around to see the sights of the city that were not going to be included on our Sound of Music Guided Tour. We also realized that Saturday October 26th is Austria National Day, so there were parades and lots of activity within the main town square. It was so awesome to stumble upon a celebration we were not expecting / aware of! For a snack, we bought Mozartkugel from Furst, a famous chocolate nougat. I enjoyed it, but Dani was not a fan. We headed towards the meeting point for the tour, stopping at a hamburger shop (of all things!) for a quick lunch. The hamburgers were actually extremely tasty and filled us for the entire 4 hour tour. The tour included stops at a lot of the sights where filming of the Sound of Music took place and even took us outside of Salzburg to the lake district and the town of Mondsee. The first stop was Leopoldskron Palace, which was used as the Von Trapp family home background and is where the children fall off the boat into the water when welcoming the Captain home. The views of the Palace across from the lake were beautiful. Afterwards, we drove through Salzburg passing the bridge shown during "Do Re Mi" on the way to Hellbrunn Palace, the sight of the "16 going on 17" Gazebo. We enjoyed twirling around in front of the Gazebo pretending that we were once again 16 going on 17. After Hellbrunn Palace, we boarded the tour bus again to drive by the real Nonnberg Abbey before leaving Salzburg for the mountains and lake district. The Nonnberg Abbey is still a working convent and actual nuns sang for the movie's soundtrack! While driving into the lake district, we found out some more fun Sound of Music facts and sang along to some of the songs. Once up in the mountains, we stopped for a scenic photo overlooking St. Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang. The Austrian countryside is so beautiful, it made Dani and I dream of being rich enough for an Austrian ski chalet (never mind that neither of us ski). The tour then took us to the town of Mondsee, which is where the church that Maria and Captain Von Trapp get married in the movie is. The inside of the church was as spectacular as the movie presents it and there was even a church choir/band practicing when we visited. We also ate more apple strudel at Cafe Braun, recommended by the tour guide. The strudel was tasty but not as good as the strudel in Vienna. From Mondsee, the tour took us back down the mountains back to Salzburg. Ofcourse, the final song we listened and sang along to was "So Long, Farewell." Our guide also took us off the bus and showed us the Mirabell Gardens which is where most of the memorable scenes from "Do Re Mi" are located. The sun sets so early now post day light savings that the gardens were pretty dark at 6 when we entered, but it was still fun to see them. I even took a funny pic replicating Julie Andrew's pose at the end of the song. After our tour and walking around Mirabell, Dani and I headed back to the train station to buy food to eat for dinner on our train back to Vienna. Our bus to Budapest was early the next morning, so we did not have much time for anything else once back in Vienna. Best Moments:
Salzburg was absolutely beautiful! I truly gained such an appreciation for Austria traveling from Vienna to Salzburg on the train and on the Sound of Music bus. For a while, my family thought we were part Austrian (still debatable, who knows, still waiting for ancestry dna to drop a bombshell to uncover why I'm ethnically ambiguous), so I greatly enjoyed seeing such a beautiful country. In terms of taking the Sound of Music tour, Dani and I had a great time and are definitely glad that we did it. BUT, if I were to go back to Salzburg and had more than a day trip there, I would definitely recommend seeing most of the sights yourself and maybe splurging on a smaller group tour. Don't get me wrong, I loved that we had a bus full of people who were as obsessed with the Sound of Music as us and I learned a lot about the movie and the actual Von Trapp family, but its a tour and you only have a certain amount of time at each place. I would also definitely want to spend more time out on the lakes and in the mountains. Truly truly thats how beautiful they are. If I'm ever rich and famous, I'm buying an Austrian mountain vacation home. I don't even ski so thats an emphasis to how beautiful it was there. Sound of Music is one of my all time favorites, Julie Andrews is a queen and we don't deserve her, and I am so glad Dani and I were impulsive and spent the day in Salzburg!
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October 2019
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