HANNAH SHARES

We spent this past Labor Day weekend in Salzburg, Austria, and totally fell in love with the city! Sit tight, grab your coffee, this is a long one…

We drove from Vicenza (just over 5 hours) and arrived Friday afternoon. After checking in to our hotel (NH Collection Salzburg City – highly recommend, love the NH Collection hotels!), we went out to explore. We had dinner reservations, but no other set plans for the evening. The city is very walkable – we walked around the Altstadt (“Old Town”) to explore the heart of the city. The main street in the city, Getreidegasse, has lots of shopping and a few notable spots – Mozart’s birthplace (he was born in Salzburg in 1756) and St. Blasius Church. We walked over to Residenzplatz, the largest square in the city, containing a large baroque fountain, the DomQuartier (Salzburg Cathedral and museum), and St. Michael’s church. Just next to this is Mozartplatz, a courtyard dedicated to Mozart! Even though Salzburg is quite small, there is a lot to take in. Up the hill from the Cathedral is the entrance to Restaurant Stiegl-Keller, a hillside biergarten with a beautiful view of the city, where we ate dinner Friday night. They serve traditional Austrian food, and their grapefruit radler has always been a favorite of mine. Michael had a traditional beef goulash, I had braised pork, and Lucy had her own kid’s wiener schnitzel! I had to get the grapefruit radler, but Michael enjoyed their Herbstgold beer, a fall seasonal specialty.

Saturday morning after breakfast we walked back to the same area and took the FestungsBahn (the mountain cable car) up to Fortress Hohensalzburg, one of the largest medieval castle complexes in Europe. Construction of the castle began in 1077 and continued for over 400 years to become what we see today. The cable car takes you up the very steep climb in just a few minutes, and you walk out to the castle wall and look over to an incredible view of the city below. We were really impressed with everything to do here. 

The center courtyard of the castle has several booths set up resembling the different things and people you might have found in the castle hundreds of years ago. There was even a small music group playing. Right in the courtyard there is a small armory museum that has several interactive exhibits to learn about the history of the castle as well as a marionette museum (the puppet productions are very popular in Salzburg). Our ticket included a self guided panoramic tour that took us through the history of the city’s salt mining, the castle dungeons, and up to a viewing platform on the tower for a full panoramic view of the surrounding areas. There is an option to tour the state rooms, which have original furnishings from the 1500s. We took the cable car back down and grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading back for Lucy’s nap.

That afternoon we headed to Mirabell Palace and the Mirabell Gardens. The Palace was built in the 1600s by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, and held banquets for the prince-archbishops and concerts from the Mozart family and other musicians. Today, the Palace holds city offices, including the Salzburg mayor. The main hall is widely known as one of the most beautiful wedding halls in the world (Google Mirabell Palace weddings 😍) and still hosts classical music concerts, just like Mozart put on back in the day.

The gardens next to the Palace are so beautiful. If you are familiar with The Sound of Music (more on that soon…) many scenes of the “Do-Re-Mi” song were filmed in these gardens, including the ending on the Mirabell Garden Steps (now commonly known as the “Do-Re-Mi Steps“). The gardens are immaculate. When we walked through on Saturday afternoon it wasn’t crowded by any means, but there were lots of people around.

We had some time to kill before our dinner reservations, so we stopped at Gablerbräu for a drink and a little appetizer – truffle fries. They were delicious, Lucy of course loved them, too. Around the corner from Gablerbräu is a little hill going down to the next street. The city built into the ground a little stream/waterfall and has plastic balls at the bottom for kids to grab, run up to the top, drop the balls in, and watch them (or run with them!) flow down the stream. Lucy dropped a few in on our way to dinner. 😊 There were lots of kids playing here every time we walked by – a fun little spot for families!

We ate at Braurestaurant IMLAUER, probably the most traditional Austrian restaurant we ate at. We were seated outside and we quickly noticed some very dark, fast-moving clouds headed our way. Just as the wind picked up, we asked to move inside. Good decision! The restaurant was very cozy inside. Lucy and I shared a roast chicken and Michael had pork skewers. We ended with a traditional warm apfelstrudel (apple strudel), had to! We ended up walking back to our hotel (not too far) in the pouring rain and wind. Luckily, I came prepared with a stroller rain cover and two umbrellas, so it could have been worse.

On Sunday morning after breakfast we went to the Cathedral for high mass. Normally to enter the Cathedral you have to purchase tickets, but anyone can come for mass. We arrived pretty early so we could walk around before mass started. The choir was playing with the organist, which was really nice to listen to. The organ at the back of the Cathedral is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen. Really the whole church is stunning. The Cathedral has been through I believe three disasters over the years, the most recent a bombing during WWII, which took out the entire dome, but was restored and consecrated after the war. In the back of the church is the bronze baptismal font – actually, the very same one that Mozart and Joseph Mohr (famous for writing “Stille Nacht“, or “Silent Night“,) were baptized in.

Sunday afternoon was a major trip highlight! Back to The Sound of Music… Without going into too much detail (I’ll try), the real Trapp family, whom the movie is based on, lived in Salzburg and most of the movie was filmed here! The movie is very special to my family, it was one of my Grandma’s favorites, and the music always reminds me of her. For several years now we have made it a tradition to watch the movie (singing along!) while we bake Grandma’s Christmas cookies. Anyways, Sunday afternoon we did a Sound of Music tour of Salzburg! The movie is not entirely true to the real story, but follows much of the real story of the Trapp family. Our tour guide, Bridgette, recommended we read Maria’s (“the real Maria’s”) autobiography, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which the movie is based on. The tour took us to all of the filming sights in and around Salzburg, some of which we just passed by and some we were able to stop and get out to explore. Here are some of the places we stopped and/or saw on the tour:

Nonnberg Abbey – Founded in 714, it is the oldest convent for women north of the Alps and is still active today. Maria Augusta von Kutschera (the “real” Maria) took a train to Salzburg to join the Benedictine Sisterhood. After serving as a governess, she and Baron von Trapp (“the Captain”) married in the Abbey Church in 1927. You can see the red dome of the Abbey from many spots around the city. The Abbey scenes from the movie were actually filmed here.

Mozart Bridge – Small pedestrian bridge over the Salzach River. Maria and the children run across the bridge pointing at city sites during the “My Favorite Things” song before the picnic scene.

Schloss Leopoldskron/Leopoldskroner Weiher – This palace (schloss is German for palace) and lake are known for all of the terrace and lake scenes in the movie. I found it interesting that the front of the home and the back of the home were filmed at two different locations. You would never know this watching the movie. The gazebo from “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and “Something Good” originally was on this property, but has since been moved (more on that next). We stood across the small lake from the palace, and passed many fishermen on the way. The palace is now a hotel, but has been a private residence for many owners since it was built in the 1700s.

Schloss Hellbrunn/Gazebo – This palace is now home to the gazebo. It was moved here from the original location at Leopoldskron to be more accessible to visitors, as the palace was dealing with many trespassers trying to access the gazebo. Schloss Hellbrunn is a beautiful new location for the gazebo! There were lots of families in the public gardens and park behind the palace, and we even saw a bride and groom doing wedding portraits there. In front of the palace is Hellbrunn Alley, a long tree-lined walkway where Maria was filmed singing “I Have Confidence” on her way to meet the Trapp family for the first time.

Schloss Frohnburg – The facade, front gate, and courtyard of this palace were used for filming the Trapp family home in the movie. The palace is privately owned, so we didn’t stop, but drove by.

St. Gilgen/Lake Wolfgang – Many panoramic shots in the movie were filmed in this area. We pulled to the side of the road overlooking the town and lake for a few minutes on our way to Mondsee. Fun fact, Mozart’s mother was born in St. Gilgen.

Basilika St. Michael/Mondsee – Mondsee is a small town about half an hour outside of Salzburg. The wedding of Maria and the Captain was filmed in the town’s Cathedral, St. Michael. We stopped in Mondsee for about an hour and were able to go inside the church. It is really stunning! It feels a little smaller inside than you would imagine from the movie, but it was so neat to see in person. Just next to the church is a small gift shop with fun local and Sound of Music themed gifts.

Mirabell Palace and Gardens – We ended the tour back in Salzburg at Mirabell Palace and Gardens. As I mentioned before, lots of scenes from “Do-Re-Mi” were filmed here – the fountain, the steps, the little gnome statues. If you stand on the steps and look over the gardens, you can see across the river to the city and the castle on top of the hill.

I LOVED this tour and thought it was a great way to learn more obviously about the movie, but also the real family, and Salzburg itself! On the drive to and from Mondsee our guide turned on the soundtrack and we sang all of the songs. I caught Michael singing a few times. 😉

After the tour we walked to St. Peter’s Abbey, right next to Salzburg Cathedral. The Abbey is a Benedictine monastery, and one of the oldest in the area, dating back to 696. When you first enter St. Peter’s District, you walk through the cemetery and catacombs, which actually inspired the scene in the Sound of Music when the Nazis were searching for the Trapp family hiding behind the tombstones. The cemetery was rebuilt in Hollywood for the movie, but walking through the cemetery you can see the similarities. You exit the cemetery into a beautiful courtyard – there’s a restaurant on the left, the church on the right, and a fountain in the middle.

We ate at the restaurant, St. Peter Stiftskulinarium, for dinner. The restaurant is reputedly the oldest restaurant in Europe (dating back to 803), but we were a little surprised by the atmosphere when we walked in. I guess I was expecting a very medieval vibe based on the fact that it’s the oldest restaurant in Europe. The restaurant is in this sort of cave-like area next to the courtyard, and it certainly looks old, but it’s decorated in a very eclectic way. Lots of colors, very fun, just not what I was expecting! I also was not expecting the food to be spectacular. It seemed like one of those places you go to for the atmosphere and to say you ate at the oldest restaurant in Europe, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up about the food. The food was amazing. Lucy and I shared gnocchi with eggplant and roasted chicken. I don’t normally go into detail about the food, but the chicken had this salted crust that was so good. I want it eat it again right now. Michael had a steak with vegetables (notably the most amazing roasted cherry tomatoes we’ve ever had) and liked it a lot, too. Even the bread and butter were delicious. We shared a crème brûlée for dessert, also very good. Our waiter was a young local guy, probably around our age. He was very friendly and had a lot of fun with Lucy. He has two boys, ages 3 and 5, and told us all about how they are already playing ice hockey. It was an awesome experience, and we both agreed it was our favorite meal in Salzburg. We weren’t originally planning to come here (I hadn’t planned our dinner for this night ahead of time), because I read that although it was very good, the restaurant was pretty pricey. I told Michael about the restaurant and he wanted to go for the experience, so we booked it that day. It was our most expensive meal, but the atmosphere, experience, and most importantly, the food, were very much worth it. We popped into the church next door before heading back to the hotel. It was almost pitch black inside except for a few lit candles. It was eerily quiet, and hard to really see much, but still neat to see inside.

Monday morning I got up early and headed out for a solo-walk at 7am. It was a perfect, chilly, but sunny morning. I warmed up once I started walking. I wanted to go back to Mirabell Gardens to see if I could get there early enough to beat any crowds. I had the entire place to myself! I snapped a few photos and walked the grounds for about 15 minutes. There were a few people there maintaining the grounds – trimming and watering the flowers. I walked across the bridge to the Altstadt, and headed toward Cafe Tomaselli, one of the most renowned European coffee houses (over 300 years old!). We walked past the cafe several times over the weekend, and I really wanted to stop for a cup of coffee, but it was always packed. At 7:30am, it was just me and two older men with their newspapers. 😊 I was so happy to sit outside and sip on a hot coffee with a warm croissant watching the city slowly wake up. I walked around the corner to the Residenzplatz to watch the sun come up over the Cathedral, and then headed back to our hotel around 8am once Lucy would be waking up. I love getting up early and walking through these cities before everyone else.

Michael and I both kept saying all weekend that we couldn’t have picked a better weekend to visit Salzburg weather-wise. We have had a very hot summer in Vicenza (hotter than last year) and the weather in Salzburg was a much needed break from that. It is cooling down in Italy now, but you really can’t beat Salzburg’s chilly mornings and evenings, with daytime highs in the low 70s. It was sunny almost the whole weekend other than the evening rain we had on Saturday night. If you ever find yourself wanting to visit Salzburg, I would say September is the perfect time to do it!

Any time we head home from a trip, we find ourselves “ranking” the city among others we’ve visited. Salzburg might just be our favorite we have done! If not our favorite, it is definitely toward the top of our list. Lots of things factor into whether or not a city/trip is our favorite or not – weather, things to do, food, walkability, any many more – and Salzburg hits all of those important factors. Perfect weather, lots to do, but all easy to get to in a pretty small footprint, great food and beer, friendly people, and it really didn’t feel too crowded with tourists. If Salzburg isn’t on your bucket list of places to visit, I recommend adding it!