When I was about six, my mother took me to the cinema for the first time. I remember it so well. Or perhaps it’s just that I then passed that cinema every day for the next 12 years or so years. Who knows where the image imprint comes from. But I do remember the movie, and I remember the posters of the movie on the walls outside the cinema and I remember that I loved that movie. It was a schmaltzy romance and I went on to make a living by writing schmaltzy romance; I owe that movie a lot, not least a visit to the place of it’s birth: Salzburg. For that movie was the one that ‘saved a studio’: The Sound of Music.

Beautiful Salzburg (ignore the clouds)

Salzburg is a beautiful city. Filled with elaborate churches, ornate coffee shops, and narrow cobbled streets full of shops, it sits against a craggy cliff adding drama to its beauty. It is also the birthplace of Mozart. But, to the locals’ chagrin, possibly its greatest claim to fame is the von Trapp family and the movie made about their escape from the Nazis. And, if all the tours on offer are any guide, a lot of the tourist dollar that comes into Salzburg is directly attributable to The Sound of Music.

Everywhere you turn in Salzburg, there’s another location from the movie. Having seen the film as often as I have (yes, I confess to that), it is quite exciting, and also somewhat surreal. I was travelling with a friend who is far more obsessed than me and he had all the facts and figures in his head having just re-watched the DVD including the commentaries. We also did The Sound of Music bus tour, which was an easy way to see a lot of the locations, and learn a lot of truths behind the Hollywood fictions – some of which would be quite upsetting to the truly devout fan. (Did you know that Christopher Plummer hated the movie and called it ‘The Sound of Mucus’??)

The tour bus we were on had the family von Trapp painted on the side; if you are going to do something as wonderfully kitsch as this, why be coy? So many of the places we stopped had car parks filled with buses on Sound of Music tours. And all the buses were full. No wonder the film continually makes the top 10 lists of all time favourites.

The bus!

Sitting in front of us on the bus was a little girl of about five or six, pink cardigan, pigtails, glasses. She knew the words to every song and happily sang along as we travelled. Totally delightful and so nice to see one kid not at home in front of the computer or the television. Oh, hang on, she probably knew the film so well from watching the DVD over and over. Still, at least she loves a classic story like this, and is learning some history as well, sort of.

Behind us on the bus was a young American guy, about 19, broken arm, jock. I overheard him telling someone that he was there because his mum makes the whole family watch the movie every Thanksgiving so he kind of had affection for it. Sadly he and the little girl never did a duet.

Our first stop was Schloss Leopoldskron, used for the exteriors of the back of the von Trapp house. This is where the children and Julie Andrews fell in the lake, nearly drowning Kym Karath who played Gretl and couldn’t swim. It’s now an American study centre of some sort, so you can stay there if you have the right enrollments. We peered at it across the lake and considered the height of the walls for scaling potential. The glass rotunda used for the film was in this garden but so many fans were breaking in at night and re-enacting ‘I am Sixteen going on Seventeen’ that it had to be moved to Schloss Hellbrun, which is open the public. There, it huddles under some trees in a corner, door firmly locked. Mind you, it’s not the original as that fell apart – after all it was only built for a couple of scenes in a film in 1964, not to become an icon.

The tour took us past the house used as the front of the von Trapp family house, different houses for the back and front – the magic of cinema. Also past Nonnberg Abbey which was used for lots of scenes and which is where the real Maria went to become a nun. The bus didn’t stop at either of these places, nor did it take us to the real von Trapp house, respectful of the fact these places are not open to the public. Of course, fans that we are, we walked up to Nonnberg Abbey later, went to the church where the real Maria married her real Captain, walked the gardens and imitated the sadness of the children coming to the gates to visit Maria when she flees her love and returns to the abbey. Sigh. Too much fun.

One real advantage of doing the tour — aside from our fearless guide Peter’s dreadful jokes, which sadly did make us all laugh — was that they took us out to Mondsee, a small town in the lakes district outside Salzburg. Mondsee church was used in the film for the wedding and has great souvenirs: a golf ball with the church printed on it! For all those golfing Sound of Music fans. I bought one for my mum. Mondsee also has excellent apple strudel with vanilla sauce. It was great to see some of the countryside and something we wouldn’t have done independently.

Returning to Salzburg, the tour finished at the Schloss Mirabell, where they shot the learning to sing sequence: ‘Doh a Deer’. We wandered round here for hours, along with hundreds of other people. But we were the only ones who attempted to re-enact the choreography of jumping up and down the staircase while singing. And you know, those kids were really talented because it’s scary jumping backwards downstairs.

Philippa relives her childhood

The only real disappointment came later in the day when we finally found Salzburg Festspiele, the Salzburg Festival’s home, where the von Trapps’ famously sang. And they really did although it was years before the war and because the Captain had lost all his money on the stock market. It’s unclear just how many of the kids sang because Maria and the Captain actually had three children together, so, does that make ten kids total or were three of the seven in the film hers? Confusing.

Oh and Liesl was really a boy, Rupert, a doctor and it was the Nazis requisitioning his services that was the final straw for Captain von Trapp, making him decide to get his family out of Austria. In fact, their butler, a devout Nazi but even more loyal servant, tipped the family off to when the borders would be closed and they caught the last train out of the country. No hiking over mountains. Which is lucky because if they’d walked over the Untersberg as they did in the film, they’d have landed themselves in Hitler’s second headquarters in Bavaria. Oops.

Anyway, the reason it was disappointing was that we didn’t get into the Festspiele arena. A live television transmission was being set up. We could have just walked in behind the Schwarzeneggers carrying lights, past the young security guys who clearly had no idea who was who, but, too polite for our own good, we asked and were turned away. So, no reliving ‘Edelweiss’.

Later, The Sound of Music out of our systems, we went to a great little outdoor bar at the Art Hotel for a well-deserved drink, and my travel companion started to laugh. He pointed over my shoulder and I turned to look: another location from the film, the murals the singing children walk past with Maria. In Salzburg, you can run from The Sound of Music but you can’t hide.

–Philippa Burne

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s things to do in Salzburg, tours in Vienna and things to see and do in Austria. Or dive straight into the deep end with the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 10:48 am and is filed under Destinations, Europe, Travel Inspiration, Travel Wishlists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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