These are a few of my favourite things
Travelling around Europe gives you a sense of history, you get to see the past in stone (or brick, or marble) and a taste of the different cultures living cheek by jowl on the continent. The other thing it does is give you a chance to visit some of the sets of the most famous movies ever made. One in particular used the locations of a town in Austria to play out its story and it just so happens to be Col's favourite movie of all time. The last guesstimate of viewing based on number of weeks in the summer multiplied by the number of trips out to the lake etc brings her somewhere way over the 100 mark which I don't think I could even get close to on any single movie. Irregardless, the ability to recite the entire movie for every cast member at will only comes after a lot of repeat viewings.
In case you haven't worked it out yet, we spent a four day weekend in Salzburg and were accompanied by Col and Ruth's fine voices singing The Sound of Music (not so ably backed up by me and Rhett). I'd seen it enough (I have a younger sister) that I knew most of the choruses of most of the songs and so they were the constant soundtrack in my head for our time there. Salzburg is actually more famous for another sound of music, that made by Mozart and not by Rodgers and Hammerstein. We managed to see a sum total of zero Mozart related things whilst in Salzburg. That just gives us an excuse to go back, right?
Salzburg on the River Salzach
We stayed at the excellent Strawberry Youth Hostel which was located not far from town and right on the river Salzach so we had a nice stroll along the embankment each morning to start our explorations of various parts of The Sound of Music (SOM). The youth hostel was great as it had a kitchen so we could make our own food, was open 24/7 so no worries about being out too late, all the staff were very friendly and the rooms were very clean and had views over the river.
Late night view from our room
We started out just wandering the streets of the old town (the Alt Stadt is actually a world heritage site) to get our bearings and see if we could do the splash in the fountain from I Have Confidence. Sadly there was construction work around the main square and the fountain was dry and inaccessible. Scratch one re-enactment.
Pretty, but dry
We stumbled across some markets in progress and got ourselves some delicious cherries to munch on. They are quite possibly the best cherries ever grown in the world ever. I'm not a fan of stone fruit by any means but these were just unbelievably good. So good I actually had three of them.
Best. Cherries. Ever.
After wandering through the markets we went up the cliff and walked along to the most dominating part of the landscape, the Festung HohenSalzburg. This castle is perched on a ridge overlooking the town and river and is pretty unassailable as far as these things go. It was built by an archbishop in the 1100s to protect the clergy from opposing forces and grew fairly organically after that. It remains one of the most well preserved fortresses in Europe. It's also a good spot to get a fantastic view over Salzburg and the Nonnberg Abbey (yes, The Abbey).
Some of the towers in the Festung Hohensalzburg
Defender's view of Salzburg
We then descended the hill again to see if we could find Nonnberg Abbey and have a look. It was used for parts of the movie including the wedding and hiding in the cemetary but most of the interior shots were actually on a sound stage set. Even so, it's a very pretty abbey and it was a privilege to be able to walk around the church inside. It's one of those churches that has its own sense of weight and history.
The Abbey tower
Peaceful
Apparently the children sing this song about Do-Re-Mi for about an hour, because that's how long it took us to walk from this bridge to the Mirabell Gardens, both of which are featured in the song.
Mozart's bridge, more famous for having singing children hanging off it
Do-Re-Mi steps
Blurry Do-Re-Mi race re-enactment
With quite enough SOM related visits and scarily bad singing by me at times, we went out to try and find some authentic Austrian fare to fill the empty stomachs that you get after traipsing around medieval towns all day. Now everybody knows that I'm a big fan of schnitzel. There used to be a luncthime every week dedicated to schnitzel in Australia where the food courts were plentiful and the schnitzels always available. I called it Fat Friday. I loved Fridays. Wiener Schnitzels were obviously perfected in Vienna (Wien) and maybe someday I'll get there and sample one. For now Salzburg was the closest place I'd come to schnitzel nirvana (although Germany is very very good, let it be said). We found a cool pub called the Alter Fuchs (Old Fox) with old school wooden furniture and a lovely beer garden out the back and they had a fairly traditional Austrian menu with schnitzel of course and knödel (a sort of large potato dumpling). It was a really welcome respite from pounding the streets in pursuit of all things SOM and we ended up having a really nice evening there with plenty of good beer and wine. The Alter Fuchs is also now the place where I had the best schnitzel ever. Austrians really have mastered the art of this wonderful dish full of crunchy deep fried goodness.
The Schnitzel
On the Sunday we took a bus out to visit Untersberg which is an incredibly picturesque mountain just up the valley from Salzburg. There's a great quote by Maria in SOM talking about it:
The visit to the Untersberg is probably the most unexpectedly wonderful part of our trip. We took a cable car up almost 1300m to the top and walked around in a generally breathtaken state for a few hours before the weather started closing in and we wisely made our way back to town. We managed to have an alpine picnic up in a meadow on the side of the trail and it is going down as my most memorable picnic ever. So that's at least three personal bests in one town. Not bad for a single weekend away. The pictures don't do it justice.
Tiny little hiking trail at the bottom of the picture
The hills are alive!
Trails along the ridgeline
Family postcard
The Untersberg is really a magnificent place to go and there's even a hotel up on the side of the hill that would be great to stay at and stage hiking trips from. There were a lot of very fit looking hikers up on the peak with those funky hiking poles that we like making fun of and I think we could find ourselves joining their ranks, given the chance (sans the poles). We didn't make it to the ice caves either which would have required a bit more preparation in terms of food and clothing and probably a guide but it's definitely on the list of things to revisit when we get through our current list of places to go.
Travel, good food, good friends. These are a few of my favourite things.
In case you haven't worked it out yet, we spent a four day weekend in Salzburg and were accompanied by Col and Ruth's fine voices singing The Sound of Music (not so ably backed up by me and Rhett). I'd seen it enough (I have a younger sister) that I knew most of the choruses of most of the songs and so they were the constant soundtrack in my head for our time there. Salzburg is actually more famous for another sound of music, that made by Mozart and not by Rodgers and Hammerstein. We managed to see a sum total of zero Mozart related things whilst in Salzburg. That just gives us an excuse to go back, right?
Salzburg on the River Salzach
We stayed at the excellent Strawberry Youth Hostel which was located not far from town and right on the river Salzach so we had a nice stroll along the embankment each morning to start our explorations of various parts of The Sound of Music (SOM). The youth hostel was great as it had a kitchen so we could make our own food, was open 24/7 so no worries about being out too late, all the staff were very friendly and the rooms were very clean and had views over the river.
Late night view from our room
We started out just wandering the streets of the old town (the Alt Stadt is actually a world heritage site) to get our bearings and see if we could do the splash in the fountain from I Have Confidence. Sadly there was construction work around the main square and the fountain was dry and inaccessible. Scratch one re-enactment.
Pretty, but dry
We stumbled across some markets in progress and got ourselves some delicious cherries to munch on. They are quite possibly the best cherries ever grown in the world ever. I'm not a fan of stone fruit by any means but these were just unbelievably good. So good I actually had three of them.
Best. Cherries. Ever.
After wandering through the markets we went up the cliff and walked along to the most dominating part of the landscape, the Festung HohenSalzburg. This castle is perched on a ridge overlooking the town and river and is pretty unassailable as far as these things go. It was built by an archbishop in the 1100s to protect the clergy from opposing forces and grew fairly organically after that. It remains one of the most well preserved fortresses in Europe. It's also a good spot to get a fantastic view over Salzburg and the Nonnberg Abbey (yes, The Abbey).
Some of the towers in the Festung Hohensalzburg
Defender's view of Salzburg
We then descended the hill again to see if we could find Nonnberg Abbey and have a look. It was used for parts of the movie including the wedding and hiding in the cemetary but most of the interior shots were actually on a sound stage set. Even so, it's a very pretty abbey and it was a privilege to be able to walk around the church inside. It's one of those churches that has its own sense of weight and history.
The Abbey tower
Peaceful
Apparently the children sing this song about Do-Re-Mi for about an hour, because that's how long it took us to walk from this bridge to the Mirabell Gardens, both of which are featured in the song.
Mozart's bridge, more famous for having singing children hanging off it
Do-Re-Mi steps
Blurry Do-Re-Mi race re-enactment
With quite enough SOM related visits and scarily bad singing by me at times, we went out to try and find some authentic Austrian fare to fill the empty stomachs that you get after traipsing around medieval towns all day. Now everybody knows that I'm a big fan of schnitzel. There used to be a luncthime every week dedicated to schnitzel in Australia where the food courts were plentiful and the schnitzels always available. I called it Fat Friday. I loved Fridays. Wiener Schnitzels were obviously perfected in Vienna (Wien) and maybe someday I'll get there and sample one. For now Salzburg was the closest place I'd come to schnitzel nirvana (although Germany is very very good, let it be said). We found a cool pub called the Alter Fuchs (Old Fox) with old school wooden furniture and a lovely beer garden out the back and they had a fairly traditional Austrian menu with schnitzel of course and knödel (a sort of large potato dumpling). It was a really welcome respite from pounding the streets in pursuit of all things SOM and we ended up having a really nice evening there with plenty of good beer and wine. The Alter Fuchs is also now the place where I had the best schnitzel ever. Austrians really have mastered the art of this wonderful dish full of crunchy deep fried goodness.
The Schnitzel
On the Sunday we took a bus out to visit Untersberg which is an incredibly picturesque mountain just up the valley from Salzburg. There's a great quote by Maria in SOM talking about it:
Mother, I could never be lost up there.
That's my mountain. I was brought up on it.
It was the mountain that lead me to you.
The visit to the Untersberg is probably the most unexpectedly wonderful part of our trip. We took a cable car up almost 1300m to the top and walked around in a generally breathtaken state for a few hours before the weather started closing in and we wisely made our way back to town. We managed to have an alpine picnic up in a meadow on the side of the trail and it is going down as my most memorable picnic ever. So that's at least three personal bests in one town. Not bad for a single weekend away. The pictures don't do it justice.
Tiny little hiking trail at the bottom of the picture
The hills are alive!
Trails along the ridgeline
Family postcard
The Untersberg is really a magnificent place to go and there's even a hotel up on the side of the hill that would be great to stay at and stage hiking trips from. There were a lot of very fit looking hikers up on the peak with those funky hiking poles that we like making fun of and I think we could find ourselves joining their ranks, given the chance (sans the poles). We didn't make it to the ice caves either which would have required a bit more preparation in terms of food and clothing and probably a guide but it's definitely on the list of things to revisit when we get through our current list of places to go.
Travel, good food, good friends. These are a few of my favourite things.
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