The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Music!

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After leaving Budapest, Hungary I traveled to Salzburg, Austria by train. The train ride was about 7 hours, but didn't seem that long because I met someone on the train and we talked for about half the ride and then we slept for the other half. Anna is the girl I met on the train, she is a student from Hungary who studies in Zurich. She was heading back to her apartment in Zurich after visiting her family in Budapest. We talked about our families, our studies, and the differences between European and American life. She was really interested in what I thought was so different about Europe from America.

I arrived in Salzburg around midnight after agreeing to meet back up with Anna in Zurich in two days time. The train station was basically deserted when I arrived and I went directly to my hostel. The hostel was about a 10 minute walk away and I only took a wrong turn once, so I made it there in about 15 minutes. I stayed in Yoho International Youth Hostel, which was a lot bigger than I had expected. This hostel is more corporate than the others I had stayed in and is involved with different chains in different cities. It was comfortable and I was lucky they had an open bed when I showed up because I didn't have a reservation for that night, but everything turned out ok. I went straight to bed so I could get up and start exploring the next morning. Then served breakfast at the hostel (unfortunately not free) and this is where I had my first (well almost) American style coffee since coming to Europe! It was quite a bit stronger than what I normally drank, but I didn't care it was amazing! I would have sat there all day if I could just drink coffee! I also had my first taste of Museli--it must be a northern Europe thing. It is a type of cereal (if you know me you know how much I adore cereal) that is like granola, but it is raw oatmeal based and has dried fruit in it. Delicious. (if you like granola...which I do) I met two Australian girls at breakfast who were going on the Sound of Music tour, which I was scheduled to go on the following morning. I also met 3 girls from Ohio, who were on their way to Vienna that afternoon to visit a friend, but they were going to be in Salzburg until later that afternoon.

Right after breakfast I found a camera repair store in order to try and repair my broken camera. When I showed him the lense the repair man said he couldn't fix it and I would have to send it to the camera specific factory to have the lense repaired, unfortunately this is what I had expected, so I decided to spend money on a film camera and about 10 rolls of films, so I could at least have pictures. I would just have to wait until I was back in Italy to straighten out my camera situation, so I might as well make the best of it. I set off for sightseeing with my new film camera in hand and the whole day ahead of me to explore Salzburg.

At the first church I stopped at I met up with the 3 girls from Ohio, and we wanted to see many of the same things so we decided to stick together until they had to leave for Vienna. Our first stop was a quick look into the Mirabell Gardens. The gardens are very beautiful: well manicured lawns, fountains, statues, and flowers decorate the entire area. We also went in search of a convent that the girls wanted to see, but couln't find the way to reach the top of the hill where it was located. In our wandering we did see another church, Salzburg is full of churches, my first view of the Salzach river and the surrounding Alps. It was a gorgeous view! Since it was a clear day I could see for miles and even see the peaks of the mountains that surrounded Salzburg.

On our walk around Salzburg we saw the Getreidegasse, a street full of little shops. The cool thing about this street is all the shops have intricate iron signs hanging above the doors. It also surprised me how many shops were selling traditional Austrian dress; the clothes were beautiful, but very expensive and not something you would think would be typical everyday wear. We also saw the Dom of Salzburg, Salzburg Cathedral. Near the Dom is Residenzplaz where there were several horse drawn carriages awaiting hire and a large chess board set up in the middle of the square, this seems to be a common theme in Europe. We also walked through Kapitelplaz and by St. Peter's. Next to St. Peter's there is a cemetary that was the model for the cemetary in the Sound of Music. The headstones are very ornate iron crosses covered in ivy, moss, and flowers of every color. Catacombs were also near the cemetary. Universitasplaz had an outdoor market full of vegetables and fruits, here I splurged and bought some dried Mango which was delicious! THe other girls and I walked around here for awhile finding souvenirs and venturing into the shops nearby, our favorite was a tea shop that had every kind of tea imaginable and also sold intricately painted tea pots. One of the last things we did was walk around the Festspielhauser, the Festival House. This building holds concerts and other activites for local festivals. Also the theater where the VonTrapps sing in the Sound of Music is located here. You are not allowed in without a tour so we didn't enter, but we did climb up a large set of stairs to a lookout point where we could see above Salzburg. This is about all we had time for before the girls had to leave for Vienna, so we ventured back to the hostel so they could gather their things and we said our goodbyes. I dropped some things off at the hostel then headed to the Steigl Brewery to take the tour!

After mastering the bus system I jumped off at the correct stop then had to ask for directions because I didn't know exactly where I was; after a bit of broken english and a lot of pointing and me not understanding an German the lady said to me I found the correct direction to the Brewery. The tour was self guided, which was ok because at every display there was a description in English as well as German. The museum in the Brewery was full of all the past design logos, memorabilia, and previous lable designs. It was pretty cool to see how the beer was made and how far they have come from the original small brewery. Beer delivered to local bars is still taken by horse drawn cart--just a bit of trivia for you. I of course did the tasting after I finished the tour, and since I know absolutely nothing about beer, I asked the waitress to just bring 3 samples of what she thought would be the most diverse; her selection was excellent. The tasing room was a large restaurant that looked like the inside of a cabin, it was pretty cool. At the end of my tasting they gave me a glass as a gift which I thought was pretty nice, since I was going to buy one anyway. I finished the tour and left around 5 pm thinking it would give me plenty of time to reach Salzburg center by the time it got dark...that was until I could find the bus stop and thought it wouldn't be too far to just walk. Sometimes this is a dangerous statement, especially when you have a poor map... I started off ok, but somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn or didn't follow the road right, and ended up following a bike path through the country around the outside of Salzburg. Don't get me wrong the scenery was beautiful, but I didn't really feel like going on a nature hike after I had already walked around all day and it was starting to get dark. I made sure to keep the Fortress at the top of the hill in Salzburg in view at all times, just so I knew basically where I was, but I couldn't shake the idea that I needed to be on the other side of the hill instead of where I currently was. When I finally saw a person not on a bike I stopped them to ask directions back into town, when I said I needed to go to Salzburg they kind of gave me that look, you know the one, the "How did you get way out here?" look. Not always the most comforting look. But I did figure out that I just had to keep walking for about another mile on the road I was currently on and I would reach the river that runs through Salzburg, then all I needed to do after that was go all the way across town back to my hostel-great. But you all will be very happy to know that I made it back safe and sound after about an hour and a half of walking--a journey that should have taken 30 minutes tops. I love getting lost. Oh another side note...the entire time I could not shake the feeling that the entire area looked familiar, and guess what, I returned to that exact area the next day on my Sound of Music tour...how's that for ironic?

My second day in Salzburg I did probably what most of you will think is the geeky-est thing ever, but those that know me really well know that I LOVE musicals and I LOVE movies, the Sound of Music is no exception. Well, the Sound of Music was filmed in Salzburg and the surrounding area. I went on a tour went around the major spots where the Sound of Music was filmed. I went with a group called Panarama Tours; it was a 4 hour tour that took a large bus with a tour guide and about 25 of us around for the morning. Trudy, my tour guide, was quite good. She was funny and explained a lot of things about the history of the film, the actors, and the area of Salzburg. On the tour we saw the Leopoldskon Castle, which was used as the back of the Von Trapp family home, a different house was used to show the front, and we saw that too. Remember how I told you I was lost the night before? When we arrived at the Leopoldskon Castle I realized I had walked right by it last night, no wonder it looked familiar! We also saw the glass gazebo that Leisel and Rolf sing in, but it is now locked because an 80 year old lady decided to try to jump the benches like in the film and fell and broke her hip. To see the church where Maria and the Captain were married we had to travel to Mondsee, a town near Salzburg. To get there we passed the town of St. Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang, which was where the opening scenes were filmed. this area is so gorgeous! The mountains are so different than the ones in Colorado, I can't even describe them! The town of Mondsee was really pretty as well. The row of trees that the kids climb in the movie was also located in Mondsee as well as the church, so of course I pretended to climb them. The best thing about going on the tour was that I met a couple from Canada. Their names were Reed and Andrea; Andrea was really into the Sound of Music, so she and I re-enacted many of the scenes and her husband took pictures for us, which was pretty nice of him. The last place we went to on the tour was the Mirabell Gardens where most of the song Do-Re-Mi was filmed. The tour was probably my favorite part of my fall break trip!

For my remaining afternoon in Salzburg I went up to the fortress at the top of the hill, Festung Hohensalzburg. Inside the fortress there is a museum full of war memorabilia and rooms that were decorated how the original castle rooms would have looked. There is also a Marionette Museum, which was interesting, yet creepy. (I have an abnormal fear of marionettes and puppets, so it is kind of amazing that I went in)

My train for Zurich didn't leave until around midnight, but I went to the train station around 7pm, so I sat in the station for quite a long time, I did a lot of Sudoku puzzles and tried to sleep for awhile. Then I took my first overnight train in a sleeper car. Stay tuned for my adventures in Zurich!

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