Birthday Weekend in Salzburg, Austria!

Written by Brittany

My birthday, May 8, is a national holiday in the Czech Republic. It’s called Liberation Day and is similar to our VE Day, celebrating the end of WWII in the CZ. Because of this wonderful coincidence, we did not have school on my birthday, which was the second Friday in May.

When we first arrived back in the fall, we looked ahead at all our school breaks and tried to figure out what we’d want to do for each one. This was the easiest one to plan. There was a perfect tour we could purchase for two nights in Salzburg during my birthday weekend. The “tour” included our accommodations as well as a 4-hour Sound of Music bus tour. So the trip we had booked since September was finally here!

We arrived in Salzburg around 11am on Friday and went to our hotel. Our hotel was probably the highlight of the trip. The hotel shared grounds with the Palace Leopoldskron, which was used as the grounds & garden for the von Trapp house in The Sound of Music! If you remember the scene where they capsize the canoe on the lake, that’s where we were. (There were two houses used, the other for the actual building and where we stayed for all the outside shots of the grounds.) So when we first arrived we spent some time just walking around in awe of the view  and reenacting some of the scenes from the movie.

The view from our hotel!

Since it was still early in the day, we ordered a picnic from our hotel, complete with blanket & map of picnic places, and found a public park nearby to relax with a beautiful view of the Alps. It was a wonderful way to actually spend time relaxing together. And really just the picnic and the amazing hotel already made it a fantastic birthday. 

The view from our picnic

After that we walked about 20 minutes to get to Old Town Salzburg and did some sightseeing. There were many beautiful squares, old churches, and souvenir shops. My favorite place of the whole trip was Mirabell Gardens, where much of the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence was filmed in the movie. We went there each day we were in Salzburg, and it was so beautiful.

Dancing around the fountain like they do in the movie!

More of the beautiful gardens!

That night we went to see a Sound of Music show at a marionette theater, which was a new experience for both of us. It was both very silly & very impressive.

On Saturday we had our official Sound of Music tour. Our hotel was the first stop of the tour, but since it is considered private property, the closest the tour group can get is a view from across the lake. We were so glad we had a more “up-close” view of such a beautiful place!  On the tour we also got to see the 16 Going on 17 gazebo; Nonnberg Abbey, the church where Maria & the captain get married; as well as some of the vistas that were used in the opening scenes. The tour ended at the Mirabell Gardens. Probably the most interesting thing we learned on the tour is that The Sound of Music is not popular with Austrians. Most of them know the real story of Maria & the von Trapp family, but don’t know anything about the musical. It’s mainly people from English speaking countries who come to Salzburg excited about the film.

After the tour we did some more exploring of the old town on our own and found other places featured in the film, including this view of Salburg which is also part of the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence. (Really the part of the movie was filmed ALL over Salzburg, so a lot of what we saw was from that song.)

That night we went to a Sounds of Salzburg dinner show, which was a great way to end the day. It featured songs from Sound of Music, Austrian folk songs, and pieces form Mozart’s operas. (Salzburg’s other claim to fame is that Mozart was born there. We didn’t learn too much about him this time, so we’ll just have to go back!) There were other people from our bus tour who were also there that evening, so we were able to enjoy the time & bond with some other Sound of Music fans from Australia, LA, & Scotland.

Our final day there we did our last bit of sightseeing, visiting the Palace Frohnburg, which was the actual building used for the von Trapp house. Also there is the lane where the children are climbing the trees & where Maria sings “I Have Confidence.” One more visit to the Mirabell Gardens and some final relaxing with the view at our hotel, and then it was time to go.

This was such a wonderful trip, and I’m not sure another birthday will be able to top #28!

For more pictures from our trip, click here!