Salzburg on the Trail of Sound of Music

Salzburg is the city of Mozart, of scenic Alpines and storybook villages. Most popularly, it is the city of ‘The Sound of Music’, the greatest musicals of all time!  

Even after 50 years of its release, the movie continues to draw fans in multitudes to the city, eager to soak in the sights they have seen being played over and over on the screen. Indeed, if you have seen the movie even once, ‘climb any [every] mountain’ here and you will feel the hills come ‘alive with the sound of music’!

Take a Sound of Music tour for that dreamy experience. Here are the many sites that await you in Salzburg:

​Residenzplatz, the city’s central square, has the striking horse fountain where Maria defiantly splashes water declaring her confidence ‘in confidence alone’. Try to splash the top of the fountain; standing 15-m tall, it is the largest Baroque fountain outside of Italy, so it won’t be as easy as it seems!

Not far from it is St Peter’s Cemetery, where the Van Trapp family hides, towards the end of the movie, when chased by the Nazi soldiers. While the scene is dreary, the cemetery is enchanting! Each gravestone is lovingly tended to with beautiful flowers and accessories, making it a delight to walk through.

Dressed in curtain drapes, the children are seen cheerily skipping over the Mozart Bridge with Maria, learning the musical notes of do-re-mi.

Felsenreitschule, once a riding school, is now Salzburg’s open air theatre. It is here that the Van Trapp family singers bid goodbye to Austria, as they sing in the Salzburg Summer Festival, in the movie.

Amongst the most photographed sites are the beautiful Mirabell Gardens, part of the Mirabell Palace, where Maria and the children are seen tripping about singing do-re-mi – marching around the Pegasus statue fountain, racing through the vine tunnel, and skipping on the stairs with each note.

Built on top of a hill, Nonnberg Abbey is where Maria (as also the real Maria Van Trapp) is training to be a nun. She is seen walking out of the gate into the ‘real world’, singing ‘what will this day be like, I wonder’. Built in 714 AD, this Benedictine convent is the oldest nunnery in the world!

Remember the charming bell outside the abbey that Liesl rings when the children come there looking for Maria? Turns out that it had to be taken down as fans would come along and merrily ring it through the day, disturbing the nuns!

The 17^th century Frohnburg Palace is one of the mansions used for the Van Trapp house in the film. The front façade, the gate and wall of the palace, feature repeatedly in the film. Maria skips past its mustard-yellow walls carrying her small suitcase and guitar, and then with ‘confidence’ opens its huge gate and rushes in, prepared to meet what lies ahead. Want to feel like Maria? Try clicking your heels skipping along its wall. The building is today a student residence for the music university, Mozarteum, and more often than not faint strains of music can be heard floating outside.

The other site depicted as the Van Trapp house is the magnificent Leopoldskron Palace, by the lake. Its back patio, balcony and garden feature in the breakfast scene with the Baroness and Max, the children trying to uplift their mood by singing ‘my favourite things’, as also when Maria and the children come rowing and the boat topples over. The palace today serves as a venue for holding seminars.

One of the most iconic sites of the film, the Gazebo was built especially for the movie, and originally stood right beside Leopoldskron Palace. This is where Liesel and Rofl merrily sing ‘sixteen going on seventeen’, and where the Captain and Maria share their first kiss. Eventually it had to be taken down as excited movie-fans started to constantly throng the gazebo disturbing the seminars! Take a virtual tour of the gazebo here:

 

The video features the iconic Gazebo, built especially for the movie, and featuring in some of its most endearing scenes.

The gazebo now stands in the Hellbrunn Palace gardens; and locked, after an enthusiastic 80-year old skipped on benches, imagining herself to be Liesel, and broke her hip!

One notable site that lies about an hour’s drive from Salzburg, in the town of Mondsee, is the highly-ornate St Michael’s Cathedral, where Maria and the Captain get married.

It is most rewarding to take a cycling tour for an up-close-and-personal experience, where you can ride over brooks and fields, the breeze in your hair, singing the songs we all so love.

And if you have still not had your fill, go watch the Sounds of Salzburg show in Sternbrau, and you will be regaled with the songs of the film, Mozart compositions and traditional Austrian melodies. Indeed, these are now ‘a few of my favourite things’! 

Featured image credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33o32C0ogVM