The Sound of Salzburg

The musical film is based on a true story depicting the unusual and exciting love story of Baron Georg von Trapp and Maria Augusta von Kutschera. Finding himself a widower in the middle of World War II in Austria, Captain von Trapp was faced with the challenge of raising his seven children. When the Captain sought help from the abbey, the Mother Superior sent a novice named Maria to be the governess in the von Trapp household. Armed with her guitar and her talent for music, she taught the von Trapp children to sing. She endeared herself, too, to the Captain and what ensued was a beautiful love story.

I stepped out of the bus, my heart leaping out of my chest. I was ready to retrace the sights where the movie was filmed. I was excited. My excitement doubled knowing that I was visiting Salzburg on the 50th year of The Sound of Music. I was the most excited among the members of the group, mostly Americans and English, who would tour the old city of Salzburg that day.

(The Alps of Untersberg, which was the backdrop of the opening scene of The Sound of Music)

First stop: the Mirabell Garden, a colorful world of flowers and sculptural pieces of men and horses. We walked past along beautifully manicured hedges, trellises and arbors until a water-spouting fountain was revealed to us. I ran like a child to the fountain, stepped on its edge, and, on top of my lungs, with my newfound friends in the bus as my audience, I sang “Do-Re-Mi.” I was singing the song at the exact location where it was sung by the von Trapp kids in the movie. I was unabashed in my folly. The moment was presented and I grabbed it.

(The park at Mondseeland where the Von Trapp kids sang part of “Do-Re-Mi”)

Then I saw the glass gazebo on the grounds of the Hellbrunn Palace park of Mondseeland  and remembered Liesl and Rolf, the young lovers in The  Sound  of  Music, singing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.” The same gazebo was used when Maria and Captain von Trapp sang “Something Good.”

Indeed, it felt good to be in Salzburg. The Residenzplatz came next, after ogling the yellow house where Mozart, the most famous son of Salzburg, was born. It was the same square where Maria crossed to sing “I Have Confidence,” where she stopped at the fountain to splash the water back at the horses. The 15-meter fountain is made of marble from the Untersberg, a mountain near Salzburg where Maria sang “The hills are alive with the sound of music…” in the opening scene of the movie. I did not climb the mountain though. Maybe next time, so I can also pick an edelweiss or two. Yes, Heindric, our Austrian tour guide, told us that edelweiss grows mostly in the Alps.

If I couldn’t climb the Alps, I would climb up to the gates of the Nonnberg Abbey, the oldest female convent (built in 714 A.D.) that side of town. If I could be a nun I would enter the Nonnberg. But that is purely wishful thinking. Mesmerizing was the sight of the abbey from the outside. I comforted myself singing “Maria.” “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” was playing in my heart and mind. Inside the centuries-old chapel beside the abbey, fronting the Alps, I found myself thanking God for this opportunity to see Salzburg.

(Locks attached to the railings of the bridge in the old town of Salzburg, an act done by lovers who profess undying love)

Strolling along Salzburg would also reveal eclectic cemeteries seemingly camouflaged like pocket gardens. With fervent permission from the dead, I gently ran around the tombs, yes they are a tourist attraction, too, in Salzburg, and recalled how the von Trapps hid behind the tombstones in a scene in the movie.

Walking through the old city of Salzburg means constantly recognizing the scenes from The Sound of Music. Almost all the locations used in filming the Hollywood blockbuster are situated within walking distance of each other so one can easily manage to have a Sound of Music tour. (Yes, there is such thing as a Sound of Music tour in Salzburg. The tour, according to Heindric, came about in 1965, a few weeks after the release of the movie, when “fans came to Salzburg trying to find film locations like the gazebo and the villa.”)

There are locations outside the old city and they require a 30-minute bus or bike ride to get to them. One of these locations is the Cathedral of Mondsee. Inside this exquisitely designed church, I joyfully retraced how Julie Andrews as Maria walked down the aisle to meet her groom, Christopher Plummer as Capt. von Trapp.

(The Church of St. Michael in Mondsee, where Maria and Capt. Von Trapp got married in The Sound of Music)

Worth seeing, too, is the Fronhnburg Castle, off the old city of Salzburg. It was used in the movie as the front of the von Trapp villa. This 17th-century castle played a major part in the movie as it was here where Maria danced her way through the front gate, where the captain tore down the Nazi flag above the doorway and where the von Trapp family tried to escape from the Nazis by pushing their car silently out of the gate only to get caught.

Visiting Salzburg is reliving the joys of one’s childhood upon watching The Sound of Music. And, if like me, you are a fan of the movie musical, you will burst into a song everywhere you go in the old city.

(The author in front of the abbey’s chapel in Salzburg)

So to speak, I will “climb every mountain” to be back in Salzburg where “the hills are alive.” Maybe next time, I will have the chance to climb the Alps of Untersberg to pick some edelweiss.

Meanwhile, allow me to relive again the sound of Salzburg.