Salzburg!

We must have been super-excited for our Salzburg day trip because we were all up bright and early and getting ready to make our 7:30 a.m. train; somehow, we ended up losing track of time and ended up nearly running to catch it. We had 11 minutes before our train left when we were buying freshly made sandwiches for an early breakfast.  Talk about racing the clock!

We arrived in Salzburg even colder weather and more snow, but it didn’t matter, we were going to explore a new city! We hopped on the city bus and made our way to Mirabell Platz, home to Mirabell gardens and palace. We checked in with our tour company and deciding to brave the weather, we explored the town as best we could on foot. Trekking through light snow and cold makes one a hungry adventurer!  Kristen, an ex-pat living in Salzburg who worked for the tour company, had suggested a restaurant offering a substantial breakfast. We decided to take her suggestion and made our way to Fingerloos.  Fingerloos offered a very different dining experience, where the food was beautifully presented, gave you the feeling you were at a tea house. The food was delicious to say the least!

Having explored and filled our bellies, we made our way back to Mirabell Platz, where we met our tour guide,  Helmutt.  It really is a small world, as we found out very quickly, Helmutt, it turns out, lived in Pasadena before moving to Salzburg.  Helmutt gave us a tour of Mirabell gardens and palace. He even showed us the doorway leading the Mayor of Salzburg’s office. ‘The Sound of Music’ tour was off to a great start, as Helmutt was very descriptive and knowledgeable. He took us to all of the locations where the film was shot. We got to see the two homes that were used as the Von Trapp family home and were given a special treat- we were taken to the real Von Trapp family Villa! The Von Trapp Villa holds a lot of history. It turns out that after the Von Trapp family fled Austria, the Nazi’s seized the Villa and Hitler allowed Heinrick Himmler- the monster responsible for instituting the gas chambers in the concentration camps- to live there.  Himmler made changes of his own to the villa and even had Russian P.O.W.s build a wall surrounding the villa; unfortunately, those Russian soldiers were later executed by Himmler himself.  Many meetings between Hitler and Himmler took place there, even Benito Mussolini is said to have stayed there. 

Helmutt took us into the Bavarian Alps and showing us the lakes, as well as historic locations such as Mozart’s childhood home, a castle, and a palace. We ended the tour in the lakeside town of Mondsee, where we visited Mondsee Cathedral.  The beautiful and grand Mondsee Cathedral is where the wedding scene was shot for The Sound of Music.  One does not need to be a fan of the film in order to appreciate such tour, as all of the locations used in the film are part of what makes the city of Salzburg so special, the film just shared the picturesque city with the rest of the world.