For President's Day weekend (which they don't celebrate here in Germany, obviously), we decided to take the train down to Salzburg, Austria for the long weekend!
Naturally, the Griswold's didn't pay attention to what track our train would be on going from Neuhaus to Nuremberg and the train left without us. It was very unusual, in our defense, because the train is Neuhaus, so it was on the little-used track one. Lesson learned: ALWAYS check what track your train will be departing from! (Sounds pretty obvious, but we clearly didn't!)
The ride down was fairly uneventful. Once we got to Nuremberg, Todd had to go find someone to change our train tickets for us. Good thing the guy is pretty handsome, because the lady at the office was sweet on him and allowed us to change our tickets for free! WHEW!
Natalie had never been on a train with a restaurant car. (Or she had but we never told her). So she and I went to get a snack! The windows were bigger and cleaner in the food car, so we had some pretty views of the Bavarian Alps!
We were about an hour late getting into Salzburg because of our mishap in Neuhaus, but thankfully the VRBO host was kind and waited for us. Whew again! We stayed across the river from the downtown area, but the location was still good and within walking distance to everything. Above is the Salzach River with Schloss Mirabell on the north side.
Me, with the Salzburg Dom behind me (aka: The Salzburg Cathedral). Up on the hill is the Schloss Hohensalzburg. More on that later, as we visited that later in the weekend.
Our very first stop was the Salzburg Dom. I can't even express how much I loved the ceiling in this joint.
The details! (Passes out from fainting) The Salzburg Cathedral was originally built in the 700s (yes, I said 700s) but was destroyed and rebuilt a few times before the current one was built in the early 1600s. The central dome (see below) was destroyed during World War II but was rebuilt before 1960.
The star in the central dome of the ceiling of the Dom.
We got to Mozart's birth house not long before it was closing and didn't want to pay all the money to go in and not be able to see it all. Boo!
Potty humor is HUGE among the 8-year-old crowd.
We stopped at a place near Mozart's birth place for some lunch. We were kind of dumb and didn't really read the menu outside before we went in and there was literally nothing on the menu that the kids would eat. Except sorbet. So, sorbet for lunch, it is!
Salzburg has beautiful signs hanging outside of the shops. Even the Golden Arches are beautiful here!
The night before we left for Salzburg, we watched The Sound of Music. If you go to Salzburg with kids, you MUST watch this ahead of time. So much of Salzburg is featured in the movie, and it was really fun finding some of the locations we had seen the night before. Maria and the Von Trapp kids walked by here during one of the musical scenes in the movie.
This concert hall (although closed) was also featured in the movie where the Von Trapp's sang at the end before they escaped to "Switzerland." (In real life, they went to Italy, and eventually to New England).
We walked up the stairs and went up to view the city of Salzburg in the evening. Looking east toward the Cathedral.
The lights of the city started to come on before we had to head back to the apartment! Thankfully there was a great restaurant right next to our apartment (Steinlechner Jedermann's Wirtshaus if you're ever in the area).
The sun rising from the east the next morning was beautiful over the Alps. This was the view of the Festung (on the right) and the Alps (on the left) from our apartment! Can't beat that view!
We booked (in advance at home) the morning Sound of Music tour for our second day. We had to walk to Schloss Mirabell in order to pick up the tour, but it was well worth it. On the bus, we traveled to the south side of Salzburg and were able to see some amazing views of the Festung from the back side.
I feel like Grant is somewhere very exotic in this picture. Meanwhile, he's just on the shore of the Leopoldskroner Weiher, which is a lake in the southern suburbs of Salzburg.
Todd took this cute pic of Grant and we really liked it. My new camera is awesome! He got this new US Airways jet for Valentine's Day.
On the shore of Leopoldskroner Weiher, the kids pose with the house where most of the backyard scenes were filmed in The Sound of Music. If you recall the famous scene where Maria and the kids fell out of the boat, this is where that was filmed.
The gazebo from The Sound of Music where Liesl sang the famous song "I Am 16 Going On 17," now located at Schloss Hellbrun. There were actually three gazebos used in the movie, and while this one was originally back at Leopoldskron, too many people were trespassing on the grounds of the former castle, so they had it moved to Schloss Hellbrun. All of the interior shots were actually filmed in a studio, but the exterior ones were shot using this gazebo.
Grant, photobombing his parents.
This little sign sits on the wall nearby the gazebo.
The Leopoldskron castle is now used as a hotel and a conference center. (Well that's boring!)
When Maria got off the bus to go to the Von Trapp house for the first time and is singing, "I Have Confidence" as she skips down this road. Naturally, we felt the need to recreate this. I promise, the beer didn't come until later.
Beer on the Sound of Music tour? You know I'm not complaining!
The front yard scenes from the Sound of Music were filmed at this house. However, it's private property and we were not allowed to go there.
In the middle of nowhere in Austria and we drive by the Red Bull World Headquarters.
Heading to Mondsee, we briefly stop in St. Gilgen, which is a town on the shore of the Wolfgangsee (that's the lake you see here). This is the town that Mozart's mother came from.
The fam in front of St. Gilgen, Austria.
We were heading to the town of Mondsee, which is located on Lake Mondsee. It's the town where Maria and the Captain got married, in the Mondsee Abbey. In the movie, they are married at Nonnberg Abbey, but the Cathedral in Mondsee (St. Michael's) was used for the interior shots.
St. Michael's, also known as Mondsee Abbey.
Grant, inside of the Mondsee Abbey.
I wasn't expecting this church to be so beautiful. The detail in the carvings on the wall and ceiling were amazing.
OK, this Christ of the Crucifix was a bit too lifelike for me!
After we visited the Abbey, we had some time to get some crisp apfelstrudel! With ice cream! For lunch! In Mondsee!
Back on the bus, we went back to Salzburg, and were able to go to the gardens where they filmed a lot of the Do-Re-Mi song in the Sound of Music. These are the steps they all hopped up at the end!
Remember when the kids marched around the fountain during Do-Re-Mi? Here are my kids doing that!
Hopping up the stairs, it's Maria and one of her charges.
In the movie, this trellis was covered with greenery and Maria and the kids skipped through it. That is what my kids are attempting to do here!
Another Sound of Music reenactment by the Bailey's! Love the random tour group behind us, ha ha.
The birthplace of the guy who came up the Doppler effect! Science geeks, unite! The Doppler effect describes the phenomena that (to quote Wikipedia who explains things better than I can), "is the change in frequency of a wave (or other periodic event) for an observer moving relative to its source It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from an observer. Compared to the emitted frequency, the received frequency is higher during the approach, identical at the instant of passing by, and lower during the recession."
Pretty locks on the Mullner Steg bridge as we crossed the Salzach River to head back to the old town area.
Next stop, the impressive Festung Hohensalzburg! The Hohensalzburg was originally started in the late 1000s, but gradually it was expanded until it was abandoned in the 1800s. It was since used as a prison for POWs in WWI and WWII. Nowadays, it's just a fun castle to visit and they've worked hard on refurbishments ever since.
As with most impressive castles up on the sides of mountains in Europe, you have to take a funicular to get to the top. The views of the Alps facing south are insane.
Facing south, panorama of the southern side of Salzburg (the northern side is where the river and the downtown area are). From this picture, you can see (if you squint) the house on the lake that we had visited earlier in the day where they filmed the backyard scenes in The Sound of Music (it's just to the right of the middle of the picture).
I'm enjoying the views on top of the Festung and I turn around and there's a little group of people having a snack. They were all huddled around peeling hard boiled eggs!
Double fisting! Whoot! We stopped into the one restaurant up at the Festung and grabbed something to eat. As usual, it was a very late lunch, topped off with "a couple of frosties," as my dad would say.
My giant overlooking the giant Alps.
Here we are at an amazing fortress, and my kids are playing Minecraft.
"I want to climb on this cannon, Mommy."
A little hand on a cannon from 1857.
Todd, pondering which way to bomb the enemy.
There has been a train system here since perhaps the late 1400s or early 1500s and some believe that this *may* be the oldest operational railway in the world!
We went inside for a bit to the museum that was inside. It was mostly dedicated to all things war and fighting. You know, the usual stuff: armor, torture devices, weapons and gold. The doors in Europe continue to stump us as we found one that Grant's size.
Yet another Grantie door! Although I believe we called this one a Greta door (named after their younger cousin) because even Grant was too big for this one!
You can see the original medieval walls inside of the museum.
Next door was a marionette museum! Here we have the traveling Mozart family arriving home after a long trip.
Naturally, any museum in Salzburg MUST feature the Von Trapp family!
Todd's latest crazy is creepy doll heads. He likes taking pictures of them, and for some reason, there are so many of them all over Europe. Here we have a collection of creepy doll hands.
You can even practice your marionette skills! This is a very small, but very cute little museum!
Outside of the museum, as you get ready to board the funicular to head back down to the Old Town area, you can see a river running down the mountain. This is the Alm Channel Network. There's a small, historical museum here dedicated to Historical Water Architecture (or as we know it in America, floodplain management!)
Much like in Rome, you can drink the fresh water right out of the wall.
And then you can walk through the Love Grotto! One kiss in the Love Grotto and your love will be everlasting! (Not sure what this has to do with Historical Water Architecture but it was fun anyway!)
I kept seeing signs for Brokeback Mountain, the opera. I can't even fathom what that must be about.
In the Kapitalplatz at the base of the Festung, and on the side of the Dom, you can see the Man on the Golden Ball. No, he's not real! But he looks real!
