Here are the quickies:
- Time of Year: April 18-19, 2017
- City: Salzburg, Austria
- Train Station: Salzburg Hauptbahnhof
- Accommodation: Villa Trapp
If you are anything like my mom, Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music was a household staple while growing up. In fact, my mom is such a huge fan of the movie that she decided to recruit my Aunt to come visit me during my European Tour and tour the city of Salzburg – the location of where the actual von Trapp Family lived and where the movie was filmed. However, don’t expect the people of Salzburg to actually have seen the movie…although The Sound of Music is a huge part of the town’s tourism business, the movie never was a hit in Europe.
Salzburg does have one other claim to fame and that is that it’s the birthplace of the infamous classical composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. To commend Mozart’s success and ensure everyone knew Salzburg was his birthplace, local confectioner Paul Fürst created the Mozartkugel (Mozart-Ball): A pistachio marzipan and praline nougat covered in dark chocolate. Though there are now many brands and confectioneries who make their own versions, the original recipe is still produced and trademarked to descendants of Fürst. In fact, there’s been many legal disputes for the Fürst family to ensure there is a distinction between them and the copies. The Fürst recipe is wrapped in a silver and blue foil and is the only one allowed to be called the “Original Salzburg Mozartkugeln.” These will make excellent gifts for you to take back and share from your trip to Salzburg!
To get to Salzburg, we had purchased a EuRail 3 Country Select Flexible Pass valid for 10 days. EuRail is so great to travel conveniently and without the hassle of airports! Train stations are almost always located right in the heart of the city and are easily accessible other than airports that tend to be quite a drive away from the main attractions. With the pass we selected, it gave us the freedom to choose any 3 countries we wanted to travel to and it included unlimited train rides within and connecting those countries for 10 days. We decided to choose Austria, Croatia/Slovenia (luckily, EuRail counted these as one country on the pass), and Italy. EuRail offers many train itineraries and other options for you to customize your trip and find what’s most convenient or your travel plan.
I was finishing up shows in Vienna, Austria before a week and a half off when my Mom and Aunt came to join me and from there, we took the train up to Salzburg. Since we had so many items on the list to see in our week and a bit, our schedule was pretty packed. On April 18, we took the 7:30am train from Vienna, which arrived in Salzburg at 9:52am. This allowed us time to drop our bags at our Villa and walk around town to see some of the Mozart monuments and pick up some Mozartkugeln before our Sound of Music Tour began at 2pm.
Let me introduce you to Viator.com! It is THE site to check for tours and day trips… I prefer it over Expedia and TripAdvisor as it often has the same tours listed on these sites, but a bit cheaper or just more options. Of course, I do still check several sites just in case, but I would say 90% of the time I actually book a tour, it’s on Viator. This has worked for tours I’ve taken in North America, all of Europe, South America, and even in India. You will hear me mention Viator in other posts as they’ve never let me down and are very reliable.
“The Original Sound of Music” Tour we selected on Viator was 4 hours and included transportation with sing-a-longs to the iconic songs and stops at:
- The Palace of Leopoldskron (where the children fell into the lake)
- Hellbrunn Palace (where “16 Going on 17” Gazebo scene was filmed)
- Mirabell Palace and Gardens (where “Do-Re-Mi” scene was filmed)
- Drive through picturesque countryside to the Salzkammergut/Lake District
- Stop at the traditional village of St. Gilgen
- Visit the Parish Church of Mondsee (where Maria and the Captain got married)
It really was so much fun!! Some people even dress like the characters to reenact scenes from the movie and take their photos. It’s a definite must-do for any Sound of Music fan. It even started to snow and rain while we were in the gardens, but it was still such a great day…. and yes, I said snow… in APRIL!
To top it off, that night is when we stayed in the Villa Trap Hotel – the actual family home of the real von Trapp family. The accommodation and hospitality was great and they also offer 45-minute tours of the grounds. My mom absolutely loved being in Salzburg and at the famous family’s home.
The next morning, we got up early to have one last stroll around town before catching the 10:20am EuRail Train to our next country on the list: Croatia. You can read about the next leg of our trip to the Plitvice Lakes National Park here.
Even if you aren’t a Sound of Music Fan (it would hurt me to find out that you aren’t…) or don’t care for Mozart’s chocolate balls, Salzburg is picturesque with it’s fortresses and palaces nestled beside the Eastern Alps.
Follow more of my travels on Instagram #EarthDragonTravels
Upside Down Travel 