Salzburg's hills are alive part 2

The next morning we set off early to Mirabell Gardens – or at least the sidewalk in front of it – to rendezvous with our guide for Fraulein Maria’s Bike Tour! We had heard from more than one friend that this was one of the highlights of their time in Europe, but I was a little nervous about how well our group would do. The Linguist and J. took turns pulling a bike trailer (or the princess carriage) that Rosa rode in and struggling to keep the tandem bike with Deep Thinker on the back upright. The rest of us just had our individual bikes to control. Not having ridden a bike regularly for a long time (see the crazy Ferrara bike ride post here), I was a little nervous!

Our humble little group of 10

Franzisca was our guide as we rode through the area, stopping regularly to look at different sites from the Sound of Music. We learned that most people from Salzburg have never even seen the movie! And in true Hollywood fashion, it was cut and pasted from different areas and put together to create the Salzburg we know from the movie.

We ate bread at the oldest bakery in the world while we looked at the real version of the cemetery that the family hides in while making their escape to the mountains. The one in the movie is a Hollywood set, designed to look like the one in Salzburg that was still in use, and therefore, unavailable. It was really beautiful and we could’ve spent another half hour wandering around there looking. 

We also stopped to look at the outside of the stone amphitheater where the music festival is held in the movie. Originally, it was a stable for horses. The arch where Franz stands is next to it, as well.

As you can see, it appears a lot shorter in the movie

And we stopped to splash in the fountain with the horses. It sits next to the building that houses the Nazis later in the movie. Franzisca told us that when they filmed the movie (just 10 years after the end of WWII), the Nazi flag on the outside of the building caused a kind of panic among the citizens of Salzburg. It made me think of War of the Worlds. I can’t even imagine the shock of seeing that flag up there and then seeing Nazi soldiers wandering the streets in uniform again as part of the filming. It must have inspired horror.

Entrance to Maria's abbey

Interior windows in this abbey were
quite unique though not seen in the movie

Super cool wood work in Maria's abbey...
also not seen in the movie!

From there we went up to the top of a step hill near the fortress where Maria’s abbey is located. We got to go in, but found that the interior of the church isn’t the one used in the movie – just the courtyard and the iron gates. The bell the children ring when they come to see Maria is no longer there since the nuns (who still live there) tired of listening to the tourists ring it! But it is the church where the real Maria began her noviciate. She was an orphan raised by an atheist uncle, but coming into town one day, came upon a church service and was converted to God. After coming to the convent, she had difficulty staying indoors all day and they sent her as a governess to the Von Trapp family because she was often unwell in the dark confines of the abbey.

Incidentally, Salzburg is home to 49 churches! The one Lutheran church stands across the river from all of the Catholic churches.

The "other" church on the other side of the river

The character of Uncle Max was based on the family priest who ended up guiding them as they toured the world giving concerts after their escape. The Baroness was modeled on a princess, who was a cousin to the captain’s first wife. Apparently, Maria’s journal tells how she was not in love with the captain when he asked her to marry him, but accepted his proposal because he asked her not only to be his wife, but to be the mother of his children. She accepted because she loved the children and probably would have refused if he had proposed differently! She did eventually fall in love with him and loved him better than any other person in her life. They lived together in Salzburg for 10 years before leaving Austria through Italy on a train. The mountain they climb over in the movie, would actually have landed them in Germany!  

From here we had a fun (and really steep) descent off the hill and down through green fields where the executioners house was located (this was not in the movie!). Apparently they kept the town executioner isolated from the rest of the townspeople so he wouldn’t have a conflict of interest with his job! We also saw this really cool new copper roof and speculated on the cost…

Harvard now owns and runs a study abroad program
housing its students at this "rough" location

We rode through a park that sits on a lake and saw the back half of the Von Trapp house from the movie (lake scene and scene with pink lemonade on the veranda). Turns out that the front and back of the house are two different homes miles apart! The back is currently owned by Harvard University and is used as some sort of study abroad center. The only room in the house we know from the movie that actually exists is here. It’s the ballroom Maria wanders into on her first day.

Songbird and I really enjoyed the cool, tasty milk

Next we wound down out into the country, stopping at a farm to get fresh milk (although the microbiologists in our group passed on that one!) and again for ice cream at Hellbrunn Palace that’s known for its trick fountains that use only gravity. (We’ll have to see this next time!) After our ice cream stop we saw the famous gazebo that was actually Hollywood-built and was later gifted to the owners of the back of the house (see paragraph above), but it was then moved to the area beside Hellbrunn Palace because they were having so many tourists trying to sneak in to see it that it was annoying the owners of the house. Sadly, the doors are kept locked now because a tourist broke her ankle trying to re-enact Liesel’s dancing scene. We had some discussion here because the gazebo looks so much smaller than the one inside the movie…

According to the plaque on the wall, this is the original gazebo
from the movie...I'm still not convinced.

From there we rode back along the tree-lined road you see when Maria arrives at the front of the house. Incidentally, not the same tree-lined drive where the kids are hanging in the trees – that was filmed out in the Austrian countryside. We crossed the bridge she comes across with the children and ended up in Mirabell Gardens at the famous do-re-mi steps.

In addition to stopping to learn more about the history of the area and location of things from the movie, we also stopped to sing songs from the Sound of Music. We whirled in circles in a green field and sang “the hills are alive with the sound of music” and pedaled our bikes along the lake singing “My Favorite Things” (until Pianogurl and The Net had a minor accident that slowed us down for awhile). Meg re-enacted the scene where Maria sings “I have confidence” while coming down the lane to the house. My favorite was do-re-mi on the steps of Mirabell Gardens. One tourist asked why we weren’t in costume…

Do-re-mi...family style

All in all, it was so much more than what we anticipated when we booked the tour! Our guide had a lot of knowledge about the Salzburg area, as well as scenes from the movie and information about the real life of the Von Trapp Family. The day was beautiful and the Salzburg area is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been on earth!