Salzburg/Garmisch Trip: Sound Of Music Bike Tour.

Ah….Salzburg…beautiful, beautiful city! Most people I know associate Salzburg with the “The Sound Of Music” movie that was filmed in this area. I remember the first time I watched “Sound Of Music”. It was at a movie theater when I was around thirteen. My piano teacher actually took me to see it as our city movie theater was showing some old movies, this one being one of them. I sat through the whole three hour movie and came away very inspired. I loved it! I loved the songs and I loved the beautiful mountains and markets in the city. It all seemed surreal until…we came to Salzburg and saw the exact same mountains and markets and lake houses.
The funny part is that most people in Austria didn’t really know about their Salzburg’s connection with “The Sound Of Music”. In fact, many of them, only know about the movie, but have never actually seen it. It’s the Americans and the Canadians (and apparently people in the former Soviet Union) who were huge fans of the production.
In preparation for this trip, we let the kids watch the movie. Katya and Alex had seen it before, so this was a repeat, and this was the first time for Mark. I can see how much more Katya and Alex enjoyed it now, when they are more into music and singing, than before. We watched half of the movie the night before we flew out to Munich, and the other half, the night before we took our bike tour of Salzburg.
Combine two of our favorite thing—bike tours and “The Sound Of Music”—and you’ll get this Fräulein Maria´s “SOM” Bike Tour, a four hour tour that takes you all through the main sights in Salzburg and tells you how it’s all connected to the movie.
I won’t go into to much detail of the tour, as that would take hours. I must mention that our tour guide, Arsen, was actually a guitar student from Ukraine! (you’ll know later why I am mentioning the guitar).

We took a bazillion pictures this time, as so many places were just gorgeous! The first stop was on the bridge, with the Hohensalzburg Castle in the background. This is Mozartsteg that connects two sides of Salzach since 1903. This is also the bridge where Maria and the children skip while the children learn about singing. 

Yes, and another double selfie.

Our next building to see was under construction.

But that’s what it looked like in the movie.

Next stop-the place where Maria sang before starting her new job.

We had to climb several dozen stairs to get this view. The building is also part of the hall where the Von Trapp family sang at the festival.

We played at the fountains and horses just like Maria did.

"I have confidence in confidence alone....". 

The fountains are located on Residence Square, it is also the place where in the movie, Nazi soldiers are shown marching all over Salzburg.  Located right next to the Cathedral the Residenzplatz was built in 1587 under the direction of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich. To clear enough space, the Archbishop had many houses and even a cemetery destroyed! Mozart was often invited to perform in the Residence palace when he was young. 

The Residence horse fountain stands 15 meters tall, making it the largest baroque fountain outside of Italy. It was carved from Untersberg (remember the mountain that we visited the day before) stone.

On the next plaza, we took a short break, just enough time to eat a traditional pretzel (but not as big as this guy is showing to us).

Took pictures of random people statues on golden balls?

And then finally rode up a very steep hill all the way to the Nonnberg (nun-mountain) Abbey. “How do you solve a problem like Maria…?”

It was very modest and peaceful inside.

And that’s exactly where our tour guide found a very comfortable spot with benches to sit down and sing songs from the movie. Remember me mentioning that Arsen is a guitar student? He carried a mini guitar with him, so he could accompany us in our brilliant performance-haha. Well, actually, he was very impressed with our group as he said that usually he is the only one singing and most people are too shy. Our group was NOT shy—our kids were the loudest, of course.

Oh yes, this is the reason why Markovka was so happy for four hours on our bike ride. He had his own bike that was attached to Robert’s bike AND he had gears, which he thought was super cool. I frankly not sure how they rode that steep mountain to the abbey…even I had to walk my bike for a few meters.

After our singing stop, we rode to a very beautiful area to see Schloss Leopoldskron. This is where many scenes were shot on the back patio, balcony and garden. And this is where the kids fall into the lake returning from their adventures with Maria. This Palace was build in 1731. Today the building is owned by the Salzburg Global Seminar and you can even stay there overnight!

The next part was the longest ride we had that day. We rode through fields and paths and fields and villages….beautiful!

And got to…. this spot.

Ummm, Julie Andrews has some serious competition here.

And we skipped all the way to this house just like Maria.

Now this is part of the students’ dorms, actually.

And then there was the gazebo, once again. This time, a picture with most of our group.

On the way back, we had to ride through some beautiful fields again. I couldn’t resist these blooming poppies.

Oh, the excitement of the tour came when Alex actually got lost. We rode for about half a mile without realizing that he is missing. I stopped the tour guide and said that I don’t remember seeing Alex for a while now. So we tracked our steps back and saw Alex stopped with his bike. His pedals stopped working or something like that, so he couldn’t keep going. I think he was still trying to figure out how to fix it when we all disappeared out of sight. Yeah…fun times. We got the bike pedals fixed and everything turned out okay, but I must admit I was very worried there for a moment.

Not long after Alex’s mishap, my chain fell off…and I was stuck for a while…and the tour guide had to come to my rescue, and everyone had to wait…and it was a bit embarrassing, but I lived. That’s me, in a light blue top, catching up to our group.

Our final stop was Mirabelle Gardens—a truly gorgeous place in the middle of the city. The gardens and its palace are seen numerous times in the Sound of Music. The children and Maria come dancing through, jumping up and down on the steps like the notes of a musical scale, skipping around the unicorn pond and scampering through the hedge arcade. 

The palace and gardens were constructed in 1606 under the commission of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich  and were given as a gift to his mistress and their 15 children!  All birth and, deaths and wedding must be registered here. The exquisite Marble Room in the palace is a favorite wedding location for Salzburgers and is known as the most beautiful wedding hall in the world.

Nope, this is not me and my children.

This is the Watsons. Except there is a horse in the background. They probably were using a different part of the garden-haha.

Katya’s favorite kind of pictures.

After four hours of biking, we were tired but so happy that now we could relax. We learned a lot and wish we could have remembered at least half of that information. Kids did great! They love biking tours way more than walking ones, and we will keep trying to find them as we travel.

Our second day in Salzburg was not over yet, but I’ll have to tell you about our afternoon in another post.

Good night.

Lyana.