Salzburg, Austria - The hills are alive.... (1 Day Itinerary)

The hills are alive...with the sound of Salzburg! After a disappointing day in Vienna, I was so worried that we would encounter the same sort of thing in Salzburg. I had been looking forward to our day in Salzburg for weeks, months years! I've wanted to visit Salzburg ever since I was a little girl. I grew up watching The Sound of Music, and it is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Now that I was finally here, I was so scared that things would be closed and deserted like they were in Vienna. Thankfully, Salzburg caters to tourists ALL times of the year, even in the middle of August. We picked our hotel based on its walking proximity to everything we wanted to see plus the price and reviews. We could have easily stayed at a hotel in central Salzburg, but those were much more expensive. The Hotel Imlauer Altstadt by Best Western ended up being just over $200 with taxes, and since we only stayed for one night, it was well worth it to be able to walk everywhere.

Salzburg isn't a big place and if you're just hitting the highlights like us, it's easy to see in a single day...or even less than a day. Looking back, it would have been nice to have spent a weekend there to just wander aimlessly and explore some of the hidden mysteries and marvels that surround this incredible historic city.

Guess what time we woke up?? You guess it. Early! I probably spent more time planning this single day than I spent on any other day of the entire trip x2. It was my goal to see as many of the spots where they filmed The Sound of Music as possible, in addition to some actual other historic sights (i.e. Mozart was also born here). To start off the day, we visited the Mirabell Gardens, just steps from our hotel where they filmed the musical number, "Do Re Mi". It was great getting there so early because it wasn't yet crowded, and I was able to get some silly shots of myself pretending to be Maria VonTrapp.

After that we strolled past the famous fountain in Residenz Square where they filmed the beginning of the musical number, "I Have Confidence". Fun fact: that musical number was written specifically for the movie, and is not in the original Broadway version of the show.

We took a few minutes to visit the Salzburg Cathedral and St. Peter's cemetery that inspired the flight scene, but those actual scenes from the movie were filmed on a Hollywood movie set. Still, the cathedral is rather small but beautiful, and the cemetery is equally worth visiting since you're right there.

From there, we walked to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. When you drive into Salzburg, it's the first image you see. It's this incredible structure that looks like it was built from the Austrian mountains themselves. This visit had absolutely nothing to do with The Sound of Music, but it's still a very cool place to visit (it's one of the largest Medieval castles in all of Europe) and a great long hike if you're up for it.

Hohensalzburg Fortress on the top of the hill 

On our way back down, we stopped at Nonnberg Abbey. We weren't able to go in, but once again, the interior shots of Nonnberg Abbey in the movie were done on a movie set. But...BUT, the coolest, most awesome thing about this place is that it's where the REAL Maria Kutschera was a postulate before she became the governess of the Trapp children. This picture below was a lucky find. We were walking along the side of Nonnberg Abbey and we came to this small intersection. Do you recognize it? Think of Part II of the movie, after Maria has left and gone back to the abbey. A few minutes later, they show the VonTrapp children walking down the road toward the abbey to go and find her, and this is the very road where they filmed that scene. Yes, I was a little obsessed, but it was such a fun day!! Think of how many tourists go to New Zealand now to see where the movie The Lord of the Rings was filmed. Well, Salzburg and the filming of The Sound of Music is my Lord of the Rings. Go ahead...I'll wait while you laugh. Don't worry...it gets worse. :)

Outside Nonnberg Abbey

After the abbey, we got some traditional Austrian cuisine for lunch, schnitzel (no, not with noodles...I know how disappointed you are right now) with potatoes. The schnitzel was so delicious. It's basically a pork chop, pounded to about a half inch thickness, breaded and fried. So good! Ok, back to the SoM.

Think back to the very end of the movie. The VonTrapp Family Singers are performing in a concert right before they escape. As I was doing my research, I found out that the theater where they filmed the concert scene actually exists. It's called the Felsenreitschule (Rock Riding School), and the Trapp children in real life, also performed many concerts here. They have daily tours there at 2pm, but after lunch (an early lunch) it wasn't even close to being 2:00 yet, so rather than wait around for another 60-90 minutes for the tour, we just snuck in early. There were a whole bunch of students coming and going carrying musical instruments, and when we walked in, we saw the beginning of a rehearsal starting on the stage. Feeling a little awkward and out of place, I took a few quick pictures, and we left. That was the last place I wanted to see in "downtown" Salzburg, but there were still a few more stops on my SoM tour.

Felsenreitschule - Salzburg, Austria

Before leaving Salzburg for the day, we strolled past the birthplace of Mozart (that was positively mobbed with people), bought a Christmas ornament and some other trinkets before meeting up with the other couple we were traveling with. The last 3 stops on the SoM tour were some of the most important in my book.

The first stop was a little tricky to find. We had to follow some directions of a fellow SoM fan that we found online to help us find the back of the VonTrapp house or the Leopoldskron Palace. After watching the movie since the trip, I actually had a tough time trying to locate this image. I think it might be in the aerial scene in the very beginning. It backs to a pond, and we met some friendly swans on our walk.

Then we drove to the Hellbrunner Allee where Maria sings more of, "I Have Confidence" through the trees as she arrives at the VonTrapp house. The historic pedestrian street still leads up to the building that served as the façade of the VonTrapp manor house (again, the interior was a movie set). The exterior, however, is a gate house for a boarding school. Yes...a gate house. There's no interior to the structure that we could see, and it looks a little different now than it did in the movie (remind you, the movie was filmed in the 1960s).

After completing our Sound of Music tour of Salzburg, we drove about an hour and a half back into Germany to the Leonardo Hotel Royal on the outskirts of Munich. We didn't want to stay directly in Munich because we were visiting the Dachau former KZ camp the next day and picked a hotel that was only about 30 minutes away from that.

When we arrived at the hotel, we took a cab into downtown Munich or Marienplatz. We saw the town hall with its onion spires and got dinner at the infamous beer hall where they forgot my order.

We didn't actually plan anything to do in Munich, but it was nice to spend an hour or two there that evening for dinner. The next day started off very somber before we headed south into the Bavarian province of Germany and the lovely Black Forest region. For fairytale castles and tales of mad king Ludwig, click HERE. Until then....So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye...

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler