Day Two of Salzburg took us to the beautiful and huge Hohensalzburg Castle, which sits atop the Festungsberg hill. We walked from our home through the gorgeous market streets to the 2 minute funicular that takes you directly to the entrance of the Fortress.
This is the view right where you enter the castle. You can see for miles in every direction and of course, it was so beautiful. We spent the first bit of our time just walking along the walls to see every viewpoint. This place is just gorgeous!
Inside the grounds of the castle and the girls found something right away to climb and play on.
This is the backside view and this is me, catching up on my walking tour, a la Rick Steves.
The inside of Hohensalzburg was really awesome too...I loved the whitewashed walls with real timber accents in every room. It was cozy and just what I would love to have my dream house look like!
After the castle tour, we needed to fill our bellies! We settled on a cute cafe nestled into a courtyard and ordered some traditional Weiner Schnitzel with potatoes. And, we loved it...the kids loved it...we ordered seconds! How could you not love anything deep fried?! We topped this off with some delicious apple strudel and fresh whipped cream. Mmmm.
Next, we set off for our Fraulein Maria Bike Tour! It began back at the Mirabell Gardens, where our guide asked our less-than-enthusiastic group to re-enact the Do-Re-Mi sequence on the steps from the movie. Needless to say, we did it, but it wasn't pretty!
Each of the bikes had this flip-page book of scenes from the movie that we would go to on our tour. It was really cool to see everything in person, and to hear the history of it all, as well as some of the de-bunking of the sets, story and real-life characters. Hollywood took a lot of license with the story, but it worked!
Behind us is the government building that had the Nazi flag draped across it during the movie. Taylor absolutely loved this tour- more than anyone else- and has been obsessed with getting back to biking as soon as we make it back to the States (because kids biking in London isn't a smart idea if you want to stay alive)
Family picture at Mirabell (right after we "tried" to sing Do-Re-Mi)
This is the church that Maria and Captain von Trapp were married in the movie. Its also the actual place they got married in real life. We couldn't go in because it was closed for the day.
We biked up a massive hill to get to this point. We've done several bike tours in Europe- Brian and I always have either Lauren or Tessa on tandem with us. We are really thankful that no major disasters happened (despite being verbally accosted in Paris by a local!), but it is no joke pulling yourself, a bike, and a large child up a huuuuge hill! I was thankful and very sweaty when we reached the top.
You can see the Hohensalzburg Fortress above, center right. This house, besides being totally gorgeous, was used as the back of the von Trapp home during filming. A different house was used for the front.
No complaints about this beautiful place...except for the time that Kate got so distracted with looking at it, that she went off the road and fell into some stinging nettle...ouch!!
We biked along the prettiest roads with mountain views on either side to see the house they used for it's front.
My best Maria impersonation involved clicking my heels in excitement!
And then each of the kids taking turns trying to do the same. I love them so much.
Tada! This is the front of the von Trapp home used for "The Sound of Music". Its now used as dormitories for a university. However, the real von Trapp home is not close to this and is much smaller in size (they weren't nearly wealthy as the movie portrayed them). Its now used as a bed and breakfast.
The gazebo seen in the film was moved to the most beautiful park, Hellbrunn Gardens. We could have spent hours exploring this gorgeous place.
Next up: Tirol and the gorgeous Austrian Alps!