Let’s Start at the Very Beginning...

...a very good place to start. Rather than take a guided tour, we decided to visit The Sound of Music sites on our own. Sorry, but these photos aren’t in order of the scenes in the movie. This fountain was from the scene where Maria was on her way to the van Trapp villa singing I Have Confidence in Me. The girls are re-enacting the scene when the children visit the Nonnberg Nunnery (considered to be the oldest convent in the world) in an effort to get Maria to return. The real Maria was in fact never a novice there.

Starting at the Top...

Before visiting the movie sites, we traveled to the top of the hill. We took an elevator up through

the art museum, then a nice walk along the top of the ridge to the Hohensalzburg Fort dating from 1011. Betsy and I laughed after we both were bored listening to the adult audio tour and decided to switch to the kid’s version which was much more interesting. The girls especially enjoyed checking out the Royal Loo and the Marionette Museum.

The Hills are Alive...

I must confess -- as corny as it sounds, our primary goal of going to Austria was to visit the lovely sights where The Sound of Music was filmed. After our afternoon in Vienna, we headed to the airport to pick up a car for the two-hour drive to the very picturesque city of Salzburg. We splurged on a large family room at a hotel with a pool, which allowed Veronica to do laps in preparation for her first triathlon the following month. The large DVD library also came in handy as it was rainy much of the three nights.

Potty Humor...

You know that it doesn’t take much to make me laugh, but we all giggled at these two signs. The top directed us to the loo at the Hundertwasser House, which we paid to use and wasn’t as artistic as the free loo at his cafe. Veronica wasn’t afraid to try the wiener water since she knew that Wiener means from Vienna.

Vienna is Famous For...

After the amusement park, we visited two of Vienna’s famous sites--the Hundertwasser House and the Spanish Riding School. Hundertwasser was an artist and an architect who was inspired by nature which resulted in bold colors and uneven lines. This building, containing 52 apartments and 250 trees and bushes, was finished in 1996. We didn’t go in his museum, but did eat at the museum cafe which also featured uneven floors and lots of mosaics. Although we missed seeing the famous Lipizzaner horses perform, we did manage to do a tour of the stables. Ashlynn was greatly disappointed that we weren’t allowed to pet these beautiful horses, but that didn’t stop one of them from giving her an illegal nuzzle.

Fun & Games in Vienna...

When Ashlynn heard that there was an amusement park in downtown Vienna, she was on her best behavior so that I’d be willing to take her. There’s no charge to enter the Prater, which was mostly a ghost town on an early Monday morning. The girls did manage to go on two rather dubious looking roller coasters, so they were happy.

We loved watching this marionette next to the cathedral who entertained us by playing Elvis songs. If you look closely, you can see that his eyes popped out as Veronica put coins in his case.

Off to Vienna...

When we found out that James would be away during the girls’ half term break, I asked a friend from book club if she’d like to join us in Austria. Betsy had been before, but was happy to go again to see some places she’d missed. We spent the night before in her lovely apartment in Amsterdam so we’d be near the airport for our early morning flight to Vienna. After a nap at the hotel (conveniently timed during a thunderstorm), we hit the town. Our first stop was the very impressive cathedral. I knew that I’d chosen a good travel partner when the first words out of Betsy’s mouth when she saw the ceiling was “Holy s*&%”; she’d failed to notice that she standing by a priest at the time. Here the girls are on the walk up to the clock tower. The city center of Vienna is quite beautiful with a lot of impressive buildings. We enjoyed watching a few minutes of a free symphonic concert before heading to the rose garden.