Salzburg: The Sound of Music

September 11

We lefted Munich, Germany today at 7am. It was an early start, but we did get a chance to sleep on the train...somewhat. We found our hostel pretty easily behind a huge construction site just under the hill with the abbey. We were all exhausted, but we got into our hostel and got settled. It was huge, looked like the outside of a children's museum. It was orange with writing on the sides, it did not look trashy at all. It was all very nice. We spent some time exploring Salzburg before our tour at 1:30. We walked to a grocery store to get some cheap lunch ( baguette, cheese, meat, fruit... the usual) and then we stumbled upon a very interesting square. We sat down on a couple benches to eat our lunch and in front of us a huge chess board was painted on the ground. A couple old men and a middle-aged man unlocked some large plastic chess pieces ( they were probably about half my size) and started playing. It was so much fun watching this event. Then just a few yards behind us this man began to play this beautiful melody on the chelo I think. It was wonderful! The weather was perfect and the scenery was just lovely. Just to the right of me a couple yards was a line of open shops under small leather coverings. Very touristy, but still held their class. Everything seemed just perfect. We watched until the end of the chess game and then another sqaure when we walked through a stone archway. It was as if we walked into another century... gathered in the center of the square was a caravan of horse-drawn carriages with drivers. It was so beautiful! On the other side of the square was a large stone church capturing many different aspects of beauty! Everything seemed so unreal.

Before ending our stroll and heading back to the hostel for our next adventure, Chelsea split a huge chocolate covered pretzel with Christina and I. Our morning could not be complete without more chocolate. Mmmmm.

The Sound of Music in Austria

Today was a beautiful day in Salzburg, Austria! It was cloudy and raining and everything was green! We went on a Sound of Music Tour today, because the movie the Sound of Music was created about a family who lived in Salzburg, Austria. There are several places in Salzburg that are in the movie, but a lot of it is filmed in Hollywood. The tour did not start until about 1:30pm so we were able to have a relaxed morning, just simply enjoying Salzburg and the free breakfast we were given at the hostel. A small van picked us up from the hostel around 1:30pm and took us to our tour bus not too far away. We joined a bus full of tourists to see the famous scenary that Maria and the VanTraps saw everyday! I love the rain, but it was a little bit of a bummer when we were in the bus because the pictures through the windows did not come out.

:-( However we did not spend the entire time in the bus, we stopped at the lake behind the VanTraps house ( in the movie) and the Gazebo where they sing "I am 16 going on 17..." and the trees where the children are hanging out of. There were many other places that we were able to see, but did not stop at. We saw the house that the real Vantrap family lived in and we were given all the history of Salzburg. The movie brought the small little town a lot of wealth. In the evening after the tour we watched the movie and saw everything all over again... it was so cool! Oh we also went to the church where Maria got married, it was gorgeous! Everything is so big, it makes you feel so small. We walked down the isles under the dome with the beautiful glass windows and the huge spaced out walls with all the small wooden pews and huge depictions of Jesus and his mother Mary. Everything was so beautiful, so much detail goes into each and every aspect of the church. It was amazing!
After viewing the church, we went to a small little bakery and ate warm apple strudel then spun around in the grass like Maria. The hostel that we stayed in was just below the Abbey that Maria resided when she was a nun. We never got a chance to go in it because we did not want to disturb the nuns, but we saw it. Looks just like the movie! The stone walls with the hills all around. It was lovely! Everything was lovely.