Living in España: Salzburg is alive, with the Sound of Music!

Yup, I’ve always wanted to go there, and I’ve watched The Sound Of Music probably way too many times is healthy or normal in my life. I used to watch the movie thinking the views were gorgeous and the family was awesome. Then I found out that the story was more or less real, the Von Trapp Family existed, and the place where the movie was filmed is real and was where the family really lived. So, since the first time I saw the movie and watched Julie Andrews run across the screen through the hills, I’ve longed to visit Salzburg. After a long wait, I finally did it….I went to Salzburg! And let me tell you, it’s every bit as beautiful as they say it is. It’s probably a bit prettier when there’s snow or when it’s sunny, but either way it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

I set off toward Salzburg on December 28th from Munich and arrived in Salzburg at around 3 in the afternoon. I found my hostel after getting a bit lost because I didn’t follow the faulty directions very well….and set off to explore the cute little town by evening. I’ve heard Salzburg is quite small and that I had scheduled way too much time to explore the city, but I just discarded everything people said to me and decided that 4 days was perfect and that just means I can get to know the city well and take my time each day. And take my time I did. I woke up pretty much every day naturally, whenever I wanted to and was out the door and saw only a couple things a day. But took my time doing them, took an hour or more in each location and took detours down small streets and discovered beautiful architecture and religious sites. I didn’t realize how religious Austria is as a country, but boy, they’ve got their thing down. The churches are gorgeous and numerous, and there are small little religious statues hidden all over the city. Oh yea, and there’s like 2 monasteries, and a convent. So among all the beautiful sights there, there are really old cool things to see!

Anyways, I spent four days walking around Salzburg, and one of those days I was able to go on a Sound of Music Tour. Yup, I did it, I did the most touristy thing in the world and rode on a tour bus that had a big picture of Julie Andrew’s face and says Sound of Music Tour! haha, could I scream tourist any louder? Normally I avoid these types of things because I hate being stared at and painfully obvious but I decided to put aside my feelings about this moment and booked a morning tour to see some of the most famous parts from the filming of The Sound of Music.

Me at the statue where they danced around singing “Do Re Mi” :D

The back of the house that they used to film all the backyard scenes.

The Gazebo! Fun fact: They left the Gazebo in the backyard of that house above because the owners thought it was really cool. However! After people started seeing the movie they traveled to the site and really wanted to dance around the Gazebo singing “I Am Sixteen”. So naturally, people hopped the fence of the private residence and were constantly interrupting classes and other events happening. SO, they moved the Gazebo to a public park just outside Hellbrunn Palace and now it cane be accessed by everyone and people can dance around singing the song as loud as they want and whenever they want. BUT, you can’t go inside it now because a 70 year old who thought she was younger tried to dance around it on the benches and fell and broke her hip….now it is forever closed to the public to prevent more stupidity.

The Cathedral where they filmed the wedding scene. They had access to the real Cathedral but decided to use this one because they could get the high view shot that they wanted of the Julie Andrews walking down the aisle. It’s really pretty inside!

Another pretty view of the garden where they filmed “Do Re Mi”

The Abby where the real Maria Von Trapp studied and where they filmed a couple scenes at the door of the Abby.

That was just one day in Salzburg, and I spent 4 days there. So you can imagine how many pictures I took and how much I saw. It was crazy! So after i went on the morning tour bus for the Sound of Music I walked around the city, walked through the Mirabel Park again and made my way up to the Nonberg Abbey to take a look inside and see it. It was open to the public and was very pretty, well worth the walk up the hill. Especially when I got this gorgeous view of Salzburg.

I also had the opportunity to walk into countless churches in Salzburg, and each and every one of them was different from the last, and all so very different from the churches in Spain. They are very pretty and have an amazing collection of statues and murals painted on the walls. Probably the prettiest Cathedral I walked into was the big Cathedral in the center of the city. The first time I walked in it was evening on my first night there. I decided to walk in and look at it and just look at everything and appreciate it since the lighting was really bad and it was late. So, I spent a good hour walking around the Cathedral admiring everything and taking it all in. It was absolutely breathtaking. I returned two more times during my stay in Salzburg to see it again, look at new things and to take pictures this time. Except, unlike my first time visiting, it was full of visitors blocking the views and just snapping pictures and walking away. It made me sad because I don’t like just snapping a picture of something, especially not in a church, and then walking away. It takes away the beauty of it and you don’t really appreciate how much effort was put into the statue or mural. These were made to give glory to God. It’s amazing to think that these people thought God worth enough to make huge Cathedrals just for him, depicting all he did for us, and then they took the time to make statues of Jesus and the Saints. It’s really beautiful. But here’s some pictures of the Cathedral. It was covered in paintings every where and it was impossible to capture everything. But I attempted. Take a look at the album, because there’s just too many photos that I took in Salzburg for me to put them all on one blog.

In the photo album you can see pictures from my Sound of Music tour, the Nonbuerg Abbey, the Cathedral and I think that’s it. I will post another on my time in Salzburg because I did so much. I went to see Mozart’s Birth Place, and one home he stayed in. I also went up to the Fortaleza (Fortress) and got breathtaking views of Salzburg, and wandered the streets and found beautiful statues of the stations of the cross, culminating in a huge life save scene of Jesus’ Crucifixion.

I posted this on Instagram that day because for me it was a really moving experience. I’ve been struggling with trying to connect with God and Jesus while I’ve been here because I haven’t been able to go to church in English which means I don’t get as much out of the homily and readings as I usually do. But stumbling across this in Salzburg was really moving because you could actually enter the garden area where these statues were. I hesitated to enter because the gate was only half open and I didn’t know if I was allowed. But if the gate is open then clearly they don’t mind you entering. So I entered and walked up to the statue of Jesus on the Cross, and looked on both sides of me as the statues of Mary, Mary Magdalene and Joseph and was really overwhelmed with sadness and intense emotions that I had to leave. I had to leave the space because I was overwhelmed, but I was really happy that I went up there and explored this area. It was a nice detour on my way to another site. I found out later that it was a recommended walk on the tour map, but I discovered it on my own and admired some wonderful beauty. It all lead up to a Monastery at the top, (the yellow building) that was really pretty inside as well.