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Salzburg & environs with the group
Oct. 5th, 2025 03:48 pmSalzburg is famous for a number of things, many of them involving music. Mozart. The von Trapps. The Sound of Music. And since 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the release of the movie, Sound of Music tours have been particularly popular this year.
Our local guide for much of our time in Salzburg, not just Sound of Music-related sites but other places as well, was a distant relative of Agathe von Trapp, mother of the first seven von Trapp children. After she died, the Captain married Maria and they went on to have more, the youngest of whom is in his mid-80s and owns a lodge in Vermont.
As is typically the case, the Sound of Music mixes fact with fantasy in the interests of telling an engaging story, although I found both the facts and the fiction to be quite interesting and was at times even surprised at some of the overlaps.
The Sound of Music is of course not just a movie but also a stage play. And the play is not always presented with human actors, but sometimes with marionettes instead:
https://marionetten.at/en/shows/the-sound-of-music
The movie scenes that were filmed right in the city of Salzburg included the Do-re-mi song in the beautiful gardens of the Mirabell Palace, which includes some rather interesting dwarf statues:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/zwerglgarten-dwarf-garden
I knew I had a birthstone, a birth-flower and a zodiac sign, but I never knew I had a birth-dwarf! Anyway, another member of the group obligingly took a photo of me with my August-dwarf.
We saw the gazebo where Charmian Carr as Liesl bravely sang "I am 16, going on 17", pressing on despite having injured her foot (ankle?) on the glass of the gazebo. And nearby, there's a building that will open in 2026 as a Sound of Music museum.
During our walking tour in Salzburg, I of course saw posters advertising upcoming shows. One of them, a Mozart piano concert, had a picture that stopped me in my tracks. My goodness, I realized, that's Angela Hewitt! Another Ottawan, a little younger than me, who went on to a successful career as a concert pianist. I had actually thought she had mostly given up on touring; during the pandemic and the great occupation of 2022, she had to reschedule a local concert and around that time, I remember her auctioning off a bunch of her fancy dresses & other performance-wear (possibly to raise money for Orkidstra or Music & Beyond or something?) Anyway, small world!
We drove out into the countryside to see (from the outside) Nonnberg Abbey, apparently the oldest continuously existing nunnery in the German-speaking world. We saw (both inside and out) the basilica in Mondsee where Maria and the Captain were married, and stopped for lunch nearby. Mondsee is really beautiful:
https://parenthoodandpassports.com/mondsee-austria-lakeside-charm/
After lunch, we did a bit more exploration in the countryside before returning to the hotel.
Then in the evening, we went out to a Mozart dinner, which was lots of fun. Actors in period costume performed scenes from Mozart operas between courses, and musicians played some famous Mozart compositions like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on historic instruments:
https://www.mozart-dinner-concert-salzburg.com/music.html
The following morning, still with the same guide (the von Trapp relative), we got to cross the border into what today is part of Germany, to see Mount Kehlstein and the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest), which was built in 1938 as a 50th birthday present for Hitler and business and social hangout for the Nazis. What an incredible place:
https://www.berchtesgaden.de/en/nature/eagles-nest
After lunch, we had a choice of activities. Six people in our group of eleven opted to go down into the salt mine, while I and the other four preferred to explore the town of Berchtesgaden above ground on foot.
Here are some highlights. The places I looked at are mostly covered in the self-guided tour:
https://undiscoveredberchtesgaden.com/berchtesgaden-town/
We got back to our hotel in Salzburg a bit earlier than we had after the trip to Hallstatt I mentioned in my previous blog post. That allowed me a bit of time to explore the Neustadt part of Salzburg on my own, and there was still another day for independent exploration too. But I'll cover that in my next instalment.
Our local guide for much of our time in Salzburg, not just Sound of Music-related sites but other places as well, was a distant relative of Agathe von Trapp, mother of the first seven von Trapp children. After she died, the Captain married Maria and they went on to have more, the youngest of whom is in his mid-80s and owns a lodge in Vermont.
As is typically the case, the Sound of Music mixes fact with fantasy in the interests of telling an engaging story, although I found both the facts and the fiction to be quite interesting and was at times even surprised at some of the overlaps.
The Sound of Music is of course not just a movie but also a stage play. And the play is not always presented with human actors, but sometimes with marionettes instead:
https://marionetten.at/en/shows/the-sound-of-music
The movie scenes that were filmed right in the city of Salzburg included the Do-re-mi song in the beautiful gardens of the Mirabell Palace, which includes some rather interesting dwarf statues:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/zwerglgarten-dwarf-garden
I knew I had a birthstone, a birth-flower and a zodiac sign, but I never knew I had a birth-dwarf! Anyway, another member of the group obligingly took a photo of me with my August-dwarf.
We saw the gazebo where Charmian Carr as Liesl bravely sang "I am 16, going on 17", pressing on despite having injured her foot (ankle?) on the glass of the gazebo. And nearby, there's a building that will open in 2026 as a Sound of Music museum.
During our walking tour in Salzburg, I of course saw posters advertising upcoming shows. One of them, a Mozart piano concert, had a picture that stopped me in my tracks. My goodness, I realized, that's Angela Hewitt! Another Ottawan, a little younger than me, who went on to a successful career as a concert pianist. I had actually thought she had mostly given up on touring; during the pandemic and the great occupation of 2022, she had to reschedule a local concert and around that time, I remember her auctioning off a bunch of her fancy dresses & other performance-wear (possibly to raise money for Orkidstra or Music & Beyond or something?) Anyway, small world!
We drove out into the countryside to see (from the outside) Nonnberg Abbey, apparently the oldest continuously existing nunnery in the German-speaking world. We saw (both inside and out) the basilica in Mondsee where Maria and the Captain were married, and stopped for lunch nearby. Mondsee is really beautiful:
https://parenthoodandpassports.com/mondsee-austria-lakeside-charm/
After lunch, we did a bit more exploration in the countryside before returning to the hotel.
Then in the evening, we went out to a Mozart dinner, which was lots of fun. Actors in period costume performed scenes from Mozart operas between courses, and musicians played some famous Mozart compositions like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on historic instruments:
https://www.mozart-dinner-concert-salzburg.com/music.html
The following morning, still with the same guide (the von Trapp relative), we got to cross the border into what today is part of Germany, to see Mount Kehlstein and the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest), which was built in 1938 as a 50th birthday present for Hitler and business and social hangout for the Nazis. What an incredible place:
https://www.berchtesgaden.de/en/nature/eagles-nest
After lunch, we had a choice of activities. Six people in our group of eleven opted to go down into the salt mine, while I and the other four preferred to explore the town of Berchtesgaden above ground on foot.
Here are some highlights. The places I looked at are mostly covered in the self-guided tour:
https://undiscoveredberchtesgaden.com/berchtesgaden-town/
We got back to our hotel in Salzburg a bit earlier than we had after the trip to Hallstatt I mentioned in my previous blog post. That allowed me a bit of time to explore the Neustadt part of Salzburg on my own, and there was still another day for independent exploration too. But I'll cover that in my next instalment.
