Harry told me to write my thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. We are on the train from Salzburg going through Munich and hopefully will end up in Nordhausen tonight. Harry's big highlight of the trip is to go to Nordhausen where they built rockets with concentration camp labor. Sounds like fun? Well, I must be a good sport and put up with it because he was a VERY good sport for the last twenty-four hours - indulging me in my trip to Salzburg, Austria and a four hour, "Sound of Music" tour. Yes, I know it sounds very hokie and it was. However, seems like everyone on the tour was looking forward to it as much as me.
We got into Salzburg last night around 7 p.m. on the train from Vienna. We did not have a hotel, but that is no problem in European train stations. You see, each station has a reservations desk and they made us a reservation at a four star hotel in Salzburg that happened to have a "last minute special" for 84 Euros (about 100 US dollars.) This included a very nice breakfast buffet. To be sure we did not come all that way for nothing, I also asked for tickets for the "Sound of Music" tour for the morning. Our room was clean and comfortable, but I am longing for American TV much like the kids in the movie, "European Vacation." Six straight days of CNN International is getting stale.
By 9:30 we were on our bus with about 25 other enthusiastic travelers from around the world and our English-speaking (with heavy Austrian accent) tour guide. The point of the tour is this - the movie "The Sound of Music" was filmed in Salzburg so the tour bus takes you to various locations from the movie. We started by driving past the neighborhood where the real Baron Von Trapp lived and it was a very typical neighborhood. We could not drive a 60 passenger bus past this privately owned home, so we took the word of the guide that it was in there somewhere. On to the grounds of a palace (quite a small one - about the size of a large CVS store). On these palace grounds is the gazebo where two scenes of the movie were filmed - where Lisel and Kurt meet and closer to the end where the Baron and Maria declare their love.
Another scene of the children on bicycles was filmed there as well - on a tree lined lane.
By this time I thought Harry would be letting me have it but not so. He was behaving perfectly and snapping a lot of photos. We proceeded on to another pink "palace" that was used as the Von Trapp house - on a lovely lake that was also in the movie. We had to view it from afar because it is now owned by a Harvard University Foundation. Did I mention it was pouring rain? It really didn't seem to matter as it was a wonderful experience seeing all these things. We also saw Maria's convent and the church used in the movie for the wedding (however, the guide said they really got married in the convent.) The church was in a little resort town of Monsee where we stopped for some Austrian struedel and my obligatory Christmas ornament souvenier. Monsee is in the Alps where the famous first scene of Maria singing takes place. Speaking of singing - it's something I don't do much, but I did indulge Harry with singing along on with the piped in music on the bus of "Do Re Mi," and "The Lonely Goatherd" on our way back to Salzburg.
The Sound of Music is one of my favorite movies. It's a good movie to be sure, but also I have some wonderful memories. I saw the movie when it first came out while "vacationing" in Allentown with my cousins Ruthann and Cathy and my Aunt Ethel. We saw the movie in the big theater on 7th Street - the Colonial. The very next day we went into Hess's Department Store and each bought the movie soundtrack album. It think it was three dollars. I recall playing that album almost every day after school in the fifth grade.
Our visit to Salzburg was cut much too short. If we had stayed a bit longer, I would have bought one of those Austrian dresses and had Harry wearing a hat with a feather in the side and leiderhosen. But he was patient enough and I won't push it. On to Nordhausen.
Pictures - Von Trapp House - Maria's Convent - Salzburg - Von Trapp Wedding Church - Lulu writing story on train
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