Our hotel in Salzburg is about 5 kilometers out of town, right on bus line #21. It’s quiet farm country here. You can see me waving at you from the pic on the right, and as we sit on our hotel balcony (I write blogs, Sue edits pictures, then Sue fixes my writing;) our view is of snow on steep peaks that looks similar to the Matterhorn at Disneyland. We see sheep in the pasture next to us, a woman tending her plants in the garden, horses and riders clopping along a pathway, and birds flying from pasture to trees and back again.
Sometimes we do things differently than most tourists as we enjoy seeking out unique approaches to exploring an area. Staying in the very center of the old town square in Rotherburg made sense because that old city is worth it. Staying in the country and closer to the mountains sixteen minutes outside of the Salzburg city center provides the experience we want from Salzburg and Austria.
Our first day in Salzburg (the city of salt) we rode nearly ten miles on a Segway Tour that gave us an understanding of the layout of Salzburg, its history, the culture, and the ability to see most of the important parts of the city. We powered up hills to the fortress walls, viewed the vistas, and got about six hours of walking done in two hours. Our guide, Ben, knew his stuff, and led us, the only two in his group, onward with rain ponchos, even when a downpour emptied the streets of people unprepared. We’ve done eleven Segway tours in five different countries, and never before have we had a guide that gave us such freedom to pursue steep ascents and descents, and a nice speed when it was safe to do so.
Our second day was all about the Sound of Music Bicycle Tour which brought us to most of the important Salzburg filming locations used in the movie. Claudio, our informative guide, led fourteen of us for eight miles and three-and-a-half hours of bicycling all over the city to learn more about how the film was crafted using a combination of Salzburg locations and Hollywood film sets. He shared plenty of behind-the-scenes information that was fun to learn about.
We saw: The Nonnberg Abbey, Kapitelschwemme Baroque Horse Well where Maria splashed water (created out of marble in 1661 and the largest Baroque fountain in middle Europe), Mondsee Cathedral used for the wedding, Leopoldskron Palace as the Trapp family home, the glass gazebo for ‘16 Going On 17’, and the Mirabellplatz Gardens where the song ‘Do-Re-Mi’ was filmed.
We also learned that the original film was edited and cut to half the length for Austria and Germany and all German Nazi references to WWII were removed. We’ve heard in several other cities that those times are now considered the darkness.
It has been great to explore beautiful Salzburg and tomorrow we head to Munich.
