The hills are alive!

Thursday 12th August

Our first day in Salzburg was met with sun and warm temperatures; we had arrived in the sun at last!  We got up early, had breakfast at the hostel and went out to join the Sound of Music tour we had booked on.  There were posters all around the hostel advertising it, so I wasn't embarrassed to say I'd been on it.  (Not that I would have been anyway!)

We met the coach at 9:30am, with a huge picture of Maria and the children painted on the side.  I lost count of the amount of people taking photos of the coach as we drove past.  We set off and our tour guide - a very camp man named Peter - told us about the history of Salzburg and bits about the film and where we were going.

After a short drive, our first location was the lake where the kids fall out of the boat.  Rising above us was the mountain the film was shot on - the Untersberg.  We took photos and didn't act out falling into the lake.  Back on the coach we drove to the Hellbrunn Palais and gardens.  It was all painted yellow, a colour which would have no doubt looked awful in England, but here looked sunny and fresh.

We went into the gardens and saw it.  The gazebo from 'Sixteen Going On Seventeen' and 'Something Good'.  It was locked because an 80 year old woman had visited some years before and tried to run and jump around the benches, as in the film...she ended up breaking her hip.

 

After a few photos we went back to the coach and were told we'd be heading out of Salzburg for our next stop.  As soon as we crossed the border out of Salzburg the bar opened and the soundtrack was played.  the views were much like those from the train with amazingly clear skies above. 

After a while we saw a lake with a small town on one side.  It was Lake Fuschl and it's town.  Some shots from the start of the film, and scenes with the children's Do Re Mi picnic were filmed there.  We couldn't stop as the coach was too big but we drove around very slowly instead.  It was so beautiful, all the houses - a lot of them 'pensions' (B&Bs) or with 'zimmer frei' (Rooms available) - had lots of flowers all over the balconies.  It looked very traditionally Austrian; people in lederhosen and long dresses were walking around and the views were just incredible.  We want to retire there.  They had little poles sticking out of the roofs, so that when it snowed it would melt slowly and not avalanche and hurt someone. 

We left Lake Fuschl and drove on to Mondsee, where the wedding scene in the church was filmed.  The church was also painted yellow - an Austrian favourite apparently.  The rest of the buildings in the small town were painted all different colours; blue, pink, pale green.  We had an hour to see the church, wander and have some food.  There were two gift shops, one selling really nice lace and handcrafted cuckoo clocks, the other the tackiest of souveniers, including all sorts of Sound of Music magnets and books.

Resisting buying a singing magnet, we got back on the coach and were driven back into Salzburg. 

On arrival back we were told to go into the Mirabell Gardens and see where 'Do Re Mi' was also filmed.  It was an amazing place, with flowers and pathways leading up to the Pegasus fountain, next to the ivory covered walkway.  Up some steps was a 'dwarf garden' with about ten statues of strange looking dwarves.  We spent some time taking photos and generally walking around before seeing the steps from the end of the song montage.  More photos and then onto the rest of the garden where we found the statues at the entrance and thus took even more photos.

Stride like the rooster!