After a quick breakfast we headed into Salzburg. It was less than a 10 minute drive to find the parking lot near Mozartplatz. We went to the tourist information bureau and purchased a Salzburg pass for the day. That gave us the ability to go to all the museums in the city for free, as well as hopefully a free boat ride and other free activities.

We started our walk into her about going to the home of Mozart’s birthwhere he lived until he was 17. The museum was very well done, with both photos, compositions and several of his original musical instruments. After leaving Mozart birth place, we crossed over the river and one in search of Maribelle Gardens which had multiple scenes from the sound of music.

We found the gardens with their pretty flowers, statues, hedge maze, pergola, and lots and lots of tourists. The flowers were very pretty, and the statues where the ones used in the movie. The gnome garden was a little creepy, but still very interested. After the gnome garden I took a detour to see the Martinet theater while the rest of the family went to see the other Mozart museum. The marionette museum was a single room and it contained a variety of the dolls as well as a section on pieces and parts.

We left the Gardens and went to a second museum about Mozart slave, which primarily covered his father and mother as Mozart had pretty much left town by the time his family had moved. The information about Mozart’s family was very very interesting. It was nice to see a lot more context about family life and the role of other family members instead of the singular focus on Mozart the composer. I have to leave the museum, we crossed over the river into old town and just wanted around. Our first major stop was at the Mönchsberg, which was a wall that ran along the back edge of the city.

We rode in the elevator up to the top of the wall which left us at Winkler’s Terrace. The terrace was included in several sites of the movie including supposedly being outside of the Abbey when Maria first left to live with Von Trapps. This was also the location of the modern art museum. We want to round the gift shop but did not go in the museum itself. We also took beautiful pictures of the city. After taking the elevator back down to street level we walked along the wall at the back of the city. We made a stop in the sound of music museum, which was advertised as a bit of a tourist trap, but we found to be very interested history of the real story of the family. There was an interesting video of one of the daughters describing how the movie had missed represented her father and explain the use of the whistle which the father did have a special tone for a child, but it was used to call the children across their large property since yelling to them would not work.

After the museum we found a wonderful Italian restaurant in which to have lunch.
We split a caprese salad, and order of gnocchi with tomato sauce pasta with tomato sauce and a delicious pizza.

After lunch, we continued our walk through the city passing the horse fountain where the mid evil Romans would wash their horses. This fountain was also featured in the movie. We also passed the festival hall where the singing scenes were filmed, but it was not open to the public.

We then toured the cathedral and Saint peters Church. Outside Saint peters Church, was the cemetery which inspired the cemetery scene in the movie. The cemetery scene was supposed to be at the Abbey, but the abbey cemetery wasn’t big enough. They then decided to film the cemetery scene at Saint peters cemetery, but in the end they filmed it on a soundstage designed to look like the Saint peter cemetery. We also stopped in the restaurant outside of Saint peters Church. This restaurant was first opened in the year 803 and is mentioned in Charlemagne’s travels as a place where he once ate. The restaurant had beautiful arches and looked at its age.

After Saint peters we rode a Funicular up to the Strasburg fortress. We then toward the fortress including stopping for coffee and apple strudel at one of their Terrace restaurants. It was honestly the most beautiful scene I’ve ever had sitting in a restaurant we had a beautiful view of Saulsburg soul town the rest of the city and looked out I don’t know how many miles to the Alps in three directions. We completed our tour of the fortress and return to he old town.

We completed our tour bypassing by a 45 foot statue that includes a replica of the Perlini fountain in Rome, a scene from the movie where the Nazis marched in Saulsburg, and finally returned to Mozart Plaza which featured a large statue of Mozart. Our last stop before we got in the car, was to walk across Mozart’s footbridge over the river, also featured in the movie.

We returned of the car, drove to the Dynasty Chinese restaurant and enjoyed a delicious dinner. We return to the Airbnb where we did laundry pack sandwiches for tomorrow and generally took it easy.