The Sounds of Music
Trip Start
Apr 20, 1998
1
18
24
Trip End
Nov 22, 2000
Salzburg, Austrian Alps, Austria
Wednesday, June 28, 2000
The square leading from the Collegiate Church was empty except for two young musicians. They played classical music on the flute and violin. The music echoed around the lonely buildings and swirled up in the warm night air to the Hohensalzburg fortress. It was a serene atmosphere in one of Europeīs most pleasant cities.
With its medieval houses, narrow lanes and compact Old Town, Salzburg is everything imposing, grand Vienna is not. It is also open all year round. In summer the Salzburg International Festival plays to full houses while in winter, when the cityīs statues are encased in wooden crates to prevent them from cracking, the famous Christmas market does brisk business.
We walked through the Old Town and found a large cafe in one of the plazas. A trio of musicans were playing more classical music. A Mozart piano suite. It was a fitting tune, as Salzburg is where Mozart calls home. This is where the Mozart family lived and where Mozart was born in 1756. His immense legacy can be heard, and seen, throughout the city. Both his birthplace and family residence are museums and there is an annual Mozart Week (Mozartwoche) at the end of January where almost all his works are performed. Thereīs classical music shops devoted to his recordings and portraits of the brooding Mozart on tins of expensive chocolates.
Music attracts tourists from all over the world to Salzburg. But Mozart isnīt the only drawcard.
The Sound of Music, the worldīs most popular screen musical and compulsory Christmas Holiday television viewing, was filmed in Salzburg and the surrounding countryside in 1965. It is a huge drawcard for Salzburg. There are at least half a dozen Sound of Music tours that visit the filmīs locations in the city and Salzkammergut, a region of scenic mountains and lakes east of Salzburg.
Ironically the Austrians donīt even like the film. They see it as sentimental and unauthentic. The last third of the movie was cut for its German language release, removing any evidence of Nazi intimidation of the Von Trapps, but it bombed in Austria anyway.
Unfortunately many of the key locations are off limits on the tour. The Von Trapp house (which, incidentally, Himmler took over when the family ran off to Switzerland) is now strictly private. The tour buses arenīt even allowed to stop at the trees the Von Trapp children swung from as their father drove past with the Baroness.
We ended up accidently running into locations from the film anyway. We came across the gazebo in the Hellbrunn gardens where Liesl sang "I am sixteen going on seventeen". It was locked. We didnīt even get time for a photograph because a tour group from Atlanta swamped it.
A more authentic location is St. Peter's Cemetery in the Old Town. It was here in the catacombs that Liesl almost spoiled things for the fleeing Von Trapp family. She gasped when she saw her sweetheart, Rolf the postboy, dressed in Nazi uniform. Only some fast talking by Christopher Plummer ("Youīll never be one of them") saved them. The graves, overflowing with roses and carnations, are some of the best kept and colourful youīll see.
Leaving Mozart and Julie Andrews behind we treked up to the imposing Hohensalzburg fortress which overlooks the town. The interior is practical and sparse, perhaps because it was home to the austere bishop-princes rather than the more extravagant Habsburgs. Attackers faced a duanting prospect of capturing the fortress. Indeed it was only attacked once, by a peasant army. The futility of the attack can be seen in the music room where a peasant cannonball bounced off a heavy oak column, leaving only a slight dent. The fortress also gives the best views of not only the surrounding countryside, but the surrounding countries. On a clear day you can see Germany and the Czech Republic.
The next day Austria announced it had recorded its hottest Autumn for 200 years. We escaped the sweltering city on the No 55 bus to the Schloss Hellbrunn. This popular park and summer residence was built in the 17th century by one of Salzburgīs bishops, Marcus Sitticus. The tour of the residence manor house is too brief but the gardens are great fun. Make sure it is either very hot weather or you are wearing waterproofs, because the gardens are rigged with trick fountains at every turn. What sort of man would build fountains under the seats of an outdoor table? Bishop Sitticus would then turn the fountains on when guests who displeased him were seated. They were only allowed to leave the table on his command.
Our guide would suddenly break off the tour to activate the fountains, usually when we were standing right in front of them. A tour party of Greeks went into hysterics when their Orthodox Priest got trapped in a fountain of water as he was filming a statue of Neptune reclining on a rock. On such a hot day it was a relief to be drenched. Even the Orthodox Priest, after checking his camera, looked as if the soaking was welcome.
Shamefully, on our last day we continued to refuse to indulge in any of Salzburgīs musical delights. Instead we cycled down the Salzach River on a never ending bicycle path. Then we feasted on fruit and pastries from the market in the old town, window shopped for genuine Lederhosen along the Getreidegasse and went on a walking tour with a large, exuberant Austrian named Helga. We didnīt see Mozartīs bedroom, nor the Benedictine Convent in Nonnberg where the nuns pondered what would they do with a woman like Maria. W
e didnīt attend The Sound of Music dinner show, or a classical music rendition in the Festival Halls. And we didnīt care. Salzburg isnīt just for music lovers.
