Thetraveljunkie.org – When we like a city and it has also an interesting story, we like it even more. Has this ever happened to you? In our case, it happens with Salzburg in Austria. The city has the perfect combination of memories, art and history.
In 1965, a movie based on a successful Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway musical premiered in New York. Julie Andrews starred as Maria von Trapp, a real-life ex-nun who married an Austrian naval officer after she became governess to his children. The film was, The Sound of Music.
Its core family values, hummable tunes and stunning scenery turned it into a worldwide success.
It also ensured that Salzburg, with the two dozen locations featured in the film, would never be the same again. And, most Austrians still haven’t seen “The Sound of Music” and don’t understand what the fuss is about.
Anyway, We took a “The Sound of Music” tour bus. The tour picks us up from Mirabell Gardens where most of the “Do-Re-Mi” song was filmed, and proceeds to Leopoldskron Palace where the lake scenes were shot.
The palace’s Grand Ballroom was too narrow to film in, so it was meticulously copied and recreated in the 20th Century Fox studios in Los Angeles for the waltz scenes.
Then we’re off to the gazebo, used for “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”
It was originally sited outside Leopoldskron Palace but it attracted too many tourists for the business convention center housed there, so in 1989 it was moved to Hellbrunn Palace Gardens.
There are photo ops at the bottom of Nonnberg Abbey where Maria von Trapp was a novice nun, and outside Frohnburg Castle, which served as the exterior of the von Trapp villa.
The tree-lined avenue leading to the castle is where the von Trapp children dangled from branches, to the horror of their father.
Edelweiss Edelweiss.
Every morning you greet me.
Small and white.
Clean and bright.
You look happy to meet me.
We have mentioned how much we enjoy karaoke on the bus until she, Where Jac Wanders, was crying.
The final part of the tour takes in the lakes of Salzkammergut that feature in aerial shots: Lake Fuschl, Lake Wolfgang and Mondsee, in whose village church Maria’s marriage ceremony was filmed. Happy day, happy hours and happy minutes!
Stay tuned for more of our adventures in Salzburg, Austria.
xxx
Happy Sustainable Travels!
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