The Sound of Music tour. Ever feel embarrassed as you walk up to your mode of transportation, and think oh dear God? Well I did for a second when I saw the bus that we would be taking. It was very decorated, and in big letters, "THE SOUND OF MUSIC" With Julie Andrews and the kids on it. Yeah well, I got over it quickly, because the tour was fun, and they played the soundtrack and Cait and I sang along. Now Monica has never seen all of the Sound of Music... I don't know how but she never did. I suggested she watch it at the hostel, they show it every morning. She didn't like the idea. So the tour, um our tour guide was good, but boy did he stink at making jokes. He knew it so he made bad jokes just so we would laugh at him. Anyway, so the tour started out at Mirabell Gardens, which we did not stop at because it's free and you can go in there any time of the day. Mirabell Gardens is where they filmed the Do-Re-Mi song with the fountain and the grass covered thing. So it first went to Leopoldskron Palace, which is the house they used for the von Trapp house, and it also features the lake. Um beautiful! I think it was on the way there that we passed the Abe Lincoln statue... now want to know how talented he is? He's riding a horse and reading a book at the same time! That's talent, and it's just randomly in Salzburg. It was a gift, but I forget why. Oh well. Anyway.
So the Leopoldskron Palace is awesome, and they had the gazebo outside, but too many people were like jumping over the fence and doing crazy stuff to get to it that it was moved, and we saw it later on in the tour. So from where we were, right on the water's edge, there's the Palace, and in the distance the Alps. I would move there in a second! It was just awesome. I guess when they were making the Sound of Music, they weren't allowed to film inside, so they created the interior of the house in a studio. Also the lake was used for the canoe scene, and they had to shoot the scene twice, and the one they used was when Julie Andrews fell the other way, and the youngest almost drowned! Oh boy.
From here, we got back on the bus and went past the gate where Julie Andrews is singing the confidence song. We couldn't stop, it's illegal to stop on this road, so we just looked at it. I tried to get a picture of it, but it was kinda hard and far away. This is also the gate they used in the car scene at the end, and well whenever they needed the front gate. Near the gate is the trees they used to in the film.
Our next stop was the gazebo which is now at the Hellbunn Palace that was built by Markus Sittikus von Hohenems, a Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. It's a cool place. There is the Month Castle, he built a castle in a month on a bet. So awesome. But the gazebo was put there, but you can't go in anymore, because some 80 year woman was singing and dancing to 'I'm 16 going on 17' fell and broke her hip. So you just stand there, and admire it. Fun times. The whole palace though is the small yellowish color, and if this color is on a house it means it's royalty, cause whoever decided on this rule liked this color yellow and said, 'Only I can use it'. He can have it, it's not impressive. So after that we stopped by the Salzburg High School because it's a great place to view the Abbey that was used in the film and is the actual Abbey. It's like the only Abbey in Salzburg to have a red dome, so it's really easy to locate, but the real Maria was at this Abbey. We also saw the mountain that Julie Andrews ran down in 3 minutes, completely possible, I mean it's only 3 miles down the mountain. Who couldn't run down that in 3 minutes? The real Mr and Mrs von Trapp got married at the Abbey, but hey, this church is awesome. It's up in the town of Mondsee! Oh I forgot to mention we also the saw the bridge used in the Do-Re-Mi song, but since the next day I walked it, let's move on. So after the Abbey that was our last stop for awhile, as we were going to the Lake District to the town where the Church is. Now the real Mr and Mrs von TrappMondsee about a half an hour away. The views going up to the Lake District were amazing, and what we paid for the tour was suddenly worth it. The views and the town of Mondsee are amazing, and I'm so glad I got to experience them. There was one place we stopped alongside the road, and we were told that this was one of the most beautiful views. Well it was foggy, but it was amazing. Not only was it amazing, there was snow! Cait was so excited, she made a snowball, we took pictures she threw it off the mountain. I took so many pictures, but for awhile I just stood there and stared. It was amazing. I fell in love with Salzburg all over again... it made me speechless. So many mountains, and the little town below right on the lake... omg it was just amazing. I couldn't imagine anything like that, I didn't know such beautiful sights existed. That was probably the best part of the town... just so amazing. Soon after that we got to the town of Mondsee, and we were given an hour to do whatever. Our tour guide showed us the Church where they had the wedding scene. First the Church. It's amazing. But it was so interesting because now between the three of us we have a lot of Catholic education... and we never saw anything like this Church. The crucifix was weird, there was blood like running down Jesus' legs, and arms, and the look on his face was probably realistic. He didn't look that happy. The other people, they didn't look so happy either. The looks of agony on everyone was weird. Everything was black with golden vines running up and down them. It was interesting, and we found it actually to be common in Austria. We found it at least one more time, maybe twice. We did see a lot of churches! The town of Mondsee is so cute! They still had up the Christmas decorations, so it looked really pretty. It was dark by the time we finished looking at the church, so we just wandered the streets. There wasn't any chain restaurants or stores, it was really nice. Not a lot of it was opened, but we had a good time walking and talking. We walked down to the lake, and then went back to the bus. Our hour went so quickly! It was nice though, I like the town of Mondsee, but I would probably go crazy in it, like two hours after getting there. There is just not a lot to do. But just staring at the mountains and the lake would keep me occupied for at least an hour. So after that the tour was over and we went home. On the way we drove on the Autobahn, that was fun. They showed a special clip from the DVD Sound of Music, about filming locations, so basically everything we had just seen. It was cool. The tour was fun, Cait, Monica and I had a good time. It was so worth it!!! It was a 4 hour tour of some of the most unbelievable sights in Salzburg and beyond! Cait and I had a good time singing along to the songs too!!!! So that was the tour, after that Cait decided to hit up Mass at the Church right across the street from Mirabell Gardens, but Monica and I decided, hey we haven't eaten in a very long time, and the Mass was in either in German or Italian, so yeah food wins. We went to the first place we saw, and yeah we didn't annoy the waitress with our presence! Actually Cait annoyed her more, but oh well. I got grilled hamburgers, I just felt like some meat. It was good, came with a little salad, and a baked potato!!!! Yummy! I think that's actually why I got it. Cait joined us when we were eating dessert, we got dessert just to stall and for Cait to join us. It was a nice meal, we had a good time. After that we walked around the historical part. It was beautiful at night, the fortress was amazing, all the little streets were amazing. We saw this one store that was all Christmas decorations, and they had them still lit up in the window, so I took a pic for Dad. He would have loved this store, but yeah I wouldn't have allowed him in. That picture would be the closest he would get to it. Oh well. There was another store with just eggs, like colored eggs!! It was awesome. For some odd reason we never found that street again. We looked for it, but I think we just ran out of time. Oh well. Around 10ish I think it was, we departed for our hostel, and Cait to her pension. It was a really good first day in Salzburg. I fell in love with the city at least 15 times. I couldn't wait to explore it in the day time!
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