Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Hills are Alive, with the Sound of Music...

As with all the other cities, our visit of Salzburg began with a city tour. Amongst other things, we saw the Mozart’s birthplace and residence, the Residenzplatz and the Dom (Cathedral). Mozart is now a major tourist drawcard to this pretty town of Salzburg, but apparently, the man himself found Salzburg stifling and could not wait to leave. Heh.

Anyway, for the longest time, I was excited at the thought of taking the ‘Sound of Music’ tour when we got to Salzburg (which was where Maria and the von Trapp family had all their adventures). I love the movie, and I was longing to retrace Maria’s steps, singing ‘the hills are alive’ as I ran through the green hills. Hahaha!

After all that hype, we ended up deciding not to do the tour after all, since we heard that one cannot actually see that many of the movie locations in Salzburg itself (you had to go to nearby Salzkammergut or err… the Hollywood studio). :p Besides, we had very little time to see Salzburg, so we decided the time could be put to better use exploring the town itself.

With that, we decided to visit the Festung Hohensalzburg, a castle fortress built in 1077, which promised beautiful views of Salzburg and the Salzach River running through it. We hopped on the funicular Festungbahn, since I had no intention of climbing a hill with my sore feet. The fortress DID offer lovely views; and it was quite pleasant to walk around in the grounds and pop into the museums and staterooms open to visitors.

View of Salzburg from the fortress

Leaving the Festung, we then went in search of Nonnberg Abbey, which apparently was the place where ‘The Sound of Music’ first encountered Maria. We got there, looked around a bit, but still couldn’t see anything that we recognised from the movie! Cheh. Maybe we SHOULD have signed up for the tour after all! Oh well :p

We grabbed a quick lunch, and then munched on apples while we watched people playing chess on a BIG chessboard. It was sunny and warm, so we grabbed an ice-cream as we headed for Mozartplatz to board our bus.

See the big chessboard?
By the way, the man standing on the golden ball is a sculpture :)

A fitting song to sing as we left Salzburg?

‘So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodbye!’ :D

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