After a long day in Venice Erin and I left on another night train bound for Salzburg, Austria. We didn't get a sleeper car on this night train but we did get a compartment made for 6 people. Luckily, there were only 2 other people in with us and we got a pretty good nights' sleep. The train ride was about 7 1/2 hours and we arrived in Salzburg at 4:30 in the morning. While on the train we met 2 girls from Texas A + M who were studying in Italy but on their Fall Break at the same time. We found out they were staying at the same hostel as us which made us feel better since it was so early in the morning. We were all really tired but we managed to get ourselves to our hostel which was about a 5 minute walk from the train station.
We slept at the hostel until about 10 am and we decided we would explore downtown Salzburg that day since we had 2 full days to see the city. We took a map and made our way down to the city center which was about a 5-10 minute walk from our hostel.
Our first stop was the Mirabell Gardens. The gardens are next to a palace which currently serves as the town hall. It's also a free entry and we were told it's a nice place to sit and enjoy yourself. And we had another beautiful day so we stopped at the gardens and it was amazing! The gardens were so beautiful and the Fall foliage was in full bloom.
Before coming to Salzburg we read in a book that Salzburg has some famous desserts. The most famous is known as the Mozart torte, which isn't surprising considering Mozart was born in Salzburg. So we stopped by a local pastry shop and had a slice of Mozart torte and it was pretty good. It is a chocolate sponge layer cake made with rum and a little secret green ingredient. I just googled Mozart torte and found out the green layer is actually pistachios. I am not a huge fan of pistachios but this cake was pretty yummy.
After stuffing ourselves with chocolate we took an elevator to the top of a hill for some panoramic views of Salzburg. Once we got to the top of the hill I realized why the song says the hills are alive, it's because they are! The view atop this hill was so beautiful and it finally hit me that I made it to Austria. Austria was one of my goals before I left in September and it felt so good to have achieved my goal!
Salzburg is also home to a big fortress. The fortress sits atop a hill and it was a short walk from where we were so we decided to take a little trek over to check out the fortress. It was a pretty steep walk up to the fortress but since we live in Perugia we were prepared for the steepness! Once we got inside the fortress we saw it was almost closing time and because of that we got to go in for free! We couldn't see many of the rooms in the fortress but we got some more amazing views of the city. While we were enjoying the views we noticed a group of teenagers assembling just below where we were standing. We realized they were getting ready to sing so I got my camera ready not knowing what they were about to do. When they started to sing I got so excited because they were singing "Edelweiss". And because we were in the home of the "Sound of Music" it was an amazing experience that I will never forget. Here is the video..enjoy!
Since the fortress was closing down we had to make our way back over to the elevator we took to the top of the hill. While walking back over we got an awesome view of the Alps. This was my first time seeing the Alps and we came at a great time to see them. The sun was slowly setting behind them so we waited around and it was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. I have to note that these next photos are not edited at all! This is what it really looked like!
It's hard to believe but that was only day 1 in Salzburg! The next day was all devoted to the Sound of Music, the whole reason we came to Salzburg in the first place. Our hostel offered the famous Sound of Music tour and even gave a 10% discount so we had to do it. It is the only tour offered in English and it was 4 hours long. I was so excited to go because the Sound of Music is possibly my favorite movie of all time. We started the tour at 2 pm after watching the movie at our hostel in the morning. We hopped aboard the tour bus and realized we were the youngest people on the tour besides the little kids that came with their parents. Despite that it was still a lot of fun!
We started out by visiting the lake that was used as the backdrop of the Von Trapp villa. The back of the building was also used for several scenes in the film including the scenes of the party at the Von Trapp villa. It was cold and kind of rainy but it was still fun to be where they filmed my favorite movie. Our next stop was the gazebo used in the song "16 going on 17". The gazebo was built specifically for the film and was later donated to the city of Salzburg. It was moved to a nearby park where people could enjoy it. Unfortunately, you cannot go in the gazebo because about 2 years ago a woman thought she was Liesl and jumped from bench to bench as she does in the film. The woman broke her hip and the gazebo was closed after that. But we still got to see it!
Our next stop on the tour was about a 45 minute drive. On the way there we got to see the beautiful countryside just outside Salzburg while listening to the Sound of Music soundtrack. It was so much fun and our tour guide was a really funny guy. He told us lots of facts about the movie and about Salzburg itself. The most interesting fact I learned was that Salzburg is the home of Red Bull, the energy drink. It was invented and still made there today. We also learned that if you ask the locals of Salzburg about the movie they won't know what you're talking about. That's because the Sound of Music is unable to be translated into German because of the rhyming English words. The locals know of a documentary about the Von Trapps made before the movie but that's it.
Once we reached the next stop we found out it was the church used to film the wedding of Maria and Captain Von Trapp. The church is in a little town called Mondsee and it was really beautiful. We even went inside the church and got to take as many pictures as we wanted. We walked down the aisle just like Julie Andrews and just soaked it all in. I really enjoyed myself in this church! Sorry for the blurriness in the second picture.
The final stop on our tour was the Mirabell Gardens. We didn't know it when we visited the gardens the day before but a lot of scenes in the movie were filmed there. When the children and Maris sing Do Re Mi and run through the gardens, that's where they were! So Erin and I sang Do Re Mi down the famous steps just like children and it was so much fun! We felt like idiots at times but we weren't the only ones doing it so it was alright. Here I am on the steps channeling Julie Andrews and jumping down the steps!
The Sound of Music tour was so much fun and probably my favorite moment of my entire break! I highly recommend everyone to do the tour if you are in Salzburg. I hope to go back to Salzburg one day and it might just be my new favorite city.
We left Salzburg on Monday October 25th and headed for our next stop: Prague! As we were leaving it started snowing! I don't like snow, especially in October so I was so glad to be leaving. But I did snap some shots of the snow as we were on the train to Prague.
Salzburg was my favorite city I visited on Fall break and I had the best time acting like a Sound of Music nerd the entire time! It was the best 2 days of the entire trip :) My next blog entry will be all about my 3 days in Prague!
I hope everyone has a wonderful week and also a great Halloween! I am missing Halloween festivities right now because there are no signs of pumpkins here in Perugia. It's a sad thing and I cannot believe that tomorrow is November 1st! Time is flying by so quickly and I just want it to slow down a little.
It's also getting colder here which isn't making me and my roommates very happy. In Italy, there is a law that you cannot have your heat on for more than 7 hours a day and it cannot be on at night. So the heat is on in our apartment from 5 pm until midnight then it shuts off and we freeze at night. Some of my roommates even go to bed with hats and gloves on. So far I am sleeping in sweatpants, 2 sweatshirts, and socks. I cannot wait for the heat to go on everyday and we go to school just to warm up a little. It's rough but then we remember we are in Italy and everything is alright.
Here is the link to my Facebook page with all of my Salzburg pictures so check it out!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=243576&id=604955888&l=07190ee24bI will update again soon!
Italian word of the post:
zucca - pumpkin
Morgan :)
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