Day #20: Salzburg

Apparently, the dirty little secret about Salzburg is that the reason it is so beautiful is because it rains so much. A local told me that they have had two days of rain for ever day of not rain (as she put it) so far this year. But it takes a lot more than a little precipitation to derail my plans!


The day started out with the Sound of Music tour! A number of tour companies had sketched together the various sights that Hollywood used to film the Sound of Music and made it into a guided tour. While I had booked my tour online, I never received a confirmation email and my follow up email to the office remained unanswered. I showed up at the appointed time anyway hoping for the best, and thankfully it was just their fault for not sending a confirmation email.

We launched off on our tour by seeing the Von Trapp house. Well, actually, for the movie, they used two different houses (one for the front and one for the back), neither of which was the Von Trapp's actual house. This house is also where they filmed the lake scene where all the children and Maria fell into the water. Apparently, the actress that played Gretal hated the water and they were afraid of her drowning, so they had to put scuba divers in the water under the boat!

Other stops included the church where Maria and the captain got married, the famous gazebo (an important part for me after the duet I had in the Free Speech Musical), the hills where Maria ran through, the convent, the trees where the children were playing in, and various other bit scenes. On the way back to Salzburg (after a struedel break!), our guide popped in the movie soundtrack and we do, re, mi'd our way back to town.

The tour took most of the morning, so it was afternoon by the time I got to the next stop on my itinerary: Mozart's house. Mozart lived in Salzburg for much of the young part of his life. Of course, much of that time was spent touring Europe with his father and sister, wowing the courts and nobles of various European capitals with his prodigious talent. Maybe some of that trotting around Europe had an effect, because the museum mentioned how much Mozart disliked Salzburg and how he couldn't wait to get out! Which is especially ironic because if you go to Salzburg today, you can't swing a stick without touching some sort of Mozart paraphinelia. The town does not seem to mind Mozart's sentiments, they will profit off his memory nonetheless. Ah capitalism.


After Mozart's House, it was a quick hike up to the Hofburg fortress that overlooks the city of Salzburg. The views were spectacular although the castle itself was not all that great, compared to some of the ones I've seen. As with Neuschwanstein, you could get to the top with a little train, but I opted for the hike!


I finished the day with a Mozart Dinner Concert. One restrauant has a deal set up where you sit in a Baroque style room, have a three course meal featuring dishes that were popular in Mozart's day, and in between courses, you get a sample of Mozart's work from a string quartet and two opera singers. The performances were outstanding and the dinner was great. I especially enjoyed the intriguing cream soup with lemon flavoring and a dumpling. The maitre d sat me at a table with five Brits and two Aussies. They were great dinner companions and we had a lively conversation in between performances.

At one point, they were talking about BBC tv shows and then realized I was clueless. So one bloke from England told me, "You know the best show America's put on? Frasier." The rest of the table heartily agreed. I knew there was a reason I liked these people! One woman said how her favorite character was Eddie and I was able to put to use my vast Frasier knowledge and tell her that Eddie received the most fan mail out of any actor on the show!

Well, after a day like that, I was just able to drag myself into my bed and fall asleep! But not for too long, I had to catch an early morning train to Vienna the next day.