Austria

Week #2 of the "20 Day Trip" found us in Salzburg, Austria. I knew after the craziness of trying to see as much as possible in Germany, that we would appreciate settling in 1 place for awhile. So we rented an apartment in Salzburg for a week. We had such a nice week, playing games and resting in the midst of more sightseeing. We had a beautiful view of the mountains from our apartment. The only downside of where we stayed was the commute to town - it was too far to walk and we never figured out the public transportation. So instead we had to search for an impossible-to-find parking spot each time we wanted to go downtown! But it was a small thing :-)

One thing we were excited about in going to Salzburg in August was being there during the yearly Music Festival. We knew we couldn't drag Katie to any symphony performances, but we hoped to find some part of the festival to participate in. We stumbled on a free concert in the square by the cathedral the first afternoon we were there! The next day we also attended a performance of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" for kids. Now the funny thing about this performance was that it was a teaching video for kids - but completely in German. The Magic Flute is also a very strange and confusing opera - even if we did speak German. I'm not sure any of us have been that bored in a very long time! :-) So as soon as we got home from the performance, we found info to explain the opera on Wikipedia (here if you're interested :-) ). We also were able to find a CD of the music from the opera and we have all been enjoying it since.

Of course, the real reason we chose to settle in Salzburg was to see all the Sound of Music sites and go on the tour! It was sooo fun to catch glimpses all week of things from the movie! It was definitely one of those things on my "bucket list"!! Katie's imagination has also been captured by the movie so she enjoyed it as much as I did. And Jason is such a good sport - I think he enjoyed it too :-) After all, "16 going on 17" is kind of our song - since that describes our ages when we started dating :-) The tour was a lot of fun - I think a highlight for me was driving through the Austrian countryside in the bus singing along to the music from the film! (near where they filmed the opening scene) It was just as beautiful as in the movie! So above, here we are at the gazebo where Ralf and Liesl danced, the house & lake they lived in for the movie, and the fountain in the center of town where Maria sang "I Have Confidence."

Mirabell gardens is the place where the children & Maria sing "Do Re Mi" and dance all around. So we enjoyed reenacting that a bit :-) So in order, these pics are the gardens themselves, dancing around the pegasus fountain, racing down the lane like the children do and finally, posing like the statues!

















Our only disappointment with the tour is that we didn't get to visit the Abbey! From their promotional materials, it makes it seem like you get to go inside it. But no. They just drive you to a good spot for taking a picture of it very far away :-). So Nonnberg Abbey is the red roofed church in the picture. Maria von Trapp actually was a novice there and she and the Captain were married there. (as we discovered, what happened to the Trapp family in real life was not always exactly what happened in the movie :-) Close, but not quite!)

We did do things in Salzburg that were unrelated to the Sound of Music :-). We thoroughly enjoyed a tour of the Durnnberg salt mine. Salzburg was made to be the city it is because of the salt mine that brought the rulers great wealth. The salt mine tour was great - we got to do many of the things that the miners used to do: ride the train into the mine, walk through the mine tunnels, slide down a wooden slide to get further into the mine, and ride on a boat to get across the salt lake underground. It was really really fun!



In the town of Hallein close to the salt mines, we stumbled across a Silent Night museum. The composer of Silent Night, Franz Gruber, served as parish priest in the church in Hallein and he is buried there. We had no idea we would find that so it was very cool. The museum even had the guitar that the song was first played on!





As we were leaving Hallein, Katie lost tooth #4 - now she is truly toothless and singing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth"!! Apparently, the tooth fairy knows where Austria is as well. :-)








When we took the Sound of Music tour, we really enjoyed seeing the Lake district near Salzburg. So one day, we drove out to explore the lakes. We rented an electric boat that went a blinding 8 kilometers per hour (about 5 mph). Amazingly, Jason & Katie swam in the freezing cold water - even though there was no ladder to use to get back into the boat and we had no towels. They loved it though! It was just so refreshing to be out on the lake (we miss our boat in TX!), especially surrounded by beautiful mountains! The only thing that would have made it more enjoyable for Jason would have been if he had his fishing pole :-)











Our final stop in Salzburg was to visit Hellbrunn Castle. Now it is basically part of the city, but it used to be a getaway palace "out of the city" that was built in the early 17th century. The coolest thing about the palace is its grounds - the Prince-Archbishop who designed them had an extensive knowledge of waterworks. He put trick fountains all through the garden and used to surprise guests with unexpected showers. All the things we saw were original from that time period and the tour was really fun. The guide would surprise us with a trickle (or deluge!) of water all over the place - for instance from a head of antlers posted on the wall! I thought the funniest one was a table in which the prince put fountains through each seat. If his guests got too bored or boring or sleepy or inebriated or ??, he could just turn on the fountains to wake them up again :-). The only seat that did not have a fountain was the head of the table :-).

So that's Salzburg - we had a great week! The last part of our trip was France - coming soon!