Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: 47.8, 13.0333
Happy birthday to our beautiful girl - sweet sixteen!! She is smart, beautiful and our peacemaker - always caring and loving. What a special place to celebrate this special birthday.
Grandad had given the kids a day of tours in Salzburg for Christmas - first to the Salt mines at Berchtesgaden (just over the border into Germany) and then the Sound of Music tour in the afternoon. What a wonderful day!!
We joined the bus trip at Mirabellplatz, and Walter our guide entertained us with stories and anecdotes about Salzburg and the surrounding countryside until we stopped at Bad Reichenhall, the turnoff to Eagles Nest. Hitler loved this area and had a house/palace here, and for his 50th birthday, the Nazi party built him the Eagles Nest - a stunning mountain-top retreat. Unfortunately, Hitler was afraid of heights!! At Bad Reichenhall, there was a lovely covering of snow over everything, and the fog lifted to reveal a perfect sunny day.
We then drove to Berchtesgaden, a very pretty town - whilst Georgia and I enjoyed the scenic break, the boys spent most of the 20 mins hunting for toilet facilities. Still, we wandered the pedestrian street looking at their Christmas
decorations and meeting the cranky/hungry donkey at the petting zoo.
Then to the salt mines!!! This was so much fun! We all changed into special "boilersuits", and boarded a special little train - you needed to really like the people you were seated with as it was very close as we sat astride on the little wagons. The train took us deep into the salt mines, where we slid on an enormous timber slide down further into the mines.
There was lots of information on the history of salt (the basis of the regions wealth for 1000 years) and the process of mining salt - basically, they inject water into a salt vein, then wait for it to turn to a strong brine solution, which they extract, dehydrate and package as table salt.
At the end of the tour, we traversed a salt lake - the water was so clear that it took a while to realize that the patterns that we could see were actually the patterns on the roof reflected. Another slide, another train ride and we were out in the sunshine again.
When we returned to Salzburg, we found lunch at the markets that were taking place
in Mirabellplatz (mmm...sausages!!) then it was time to join the Sound of Music tour.
The hills are alive!!! The tour drove past the Nonneburg Abbey (still a convent, so not open to the public), and to the far side of the lake to see one of the houses that featured as Captain Von Trapp's home - it was the one that had the lake out the back, and we learned that little Gretel couldn't swim, and when they fell into the lake, she nearly drowned. This lead to the rest of he cast plying the little one with sweets - culminating in Christopher Plummer saying "I'm not carrying that fat kid over the Alps!" - they eventually used a body double!
Then, we drove past the second house used as the Von Trapp house, before arriving at the famous pergola "I am 16, going on 17" being led by the birthday girl. In fact, 3 pergolas were built and filmed - one at the house on the lake, this one and another in Hollywood. No one is allowed inside, after someone aged 80 attempted to dance from bench to bench and broke their leg in multiple places! The kids practiced skipping
down the lane where Maria sang "I have confidence"....well, G skipped and Tom goose stepped whilst Matt laughed uncontrollably. Then the whole bus sang Happy Birthday to G, to her embarrassment.
Back past the Nonnenburg Abbey, and off to beautiful Mondsee - the stunning lakeside village where the wedding scene was shot. We wandered into the lovely church - thinking very much of Mum - and then enjoyed birthday strudel in the cafe across the road. The trip back to Salzburg was accompanied by the soundtrack to the movie!
Back in Salzburg, we stumbled into the restaurant s'Herzl - a restaurant in the style of a Salzburg country inn from the 15th century, located on Getreidegasse in the heart of Salzburg's Old Town. A wonderful dinner, and they even found a candle for her dessert!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.182s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0506s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
michbarn68
non-member comment
Wow that bit about the sexist train is bizarre, hope you spoilt yourselves shopping.