Day 24: The Sound of Music and the Sounds of Mozart

Here’s pretty much how the discussion between Sherri and me goes when we’re figuring out the schedule for the day:

Me: Ok, train leaves at 6:55am. It takes 10 minutes to get to the train station. But, we don’t know what platform, so we should leave at 6:35.

Sherri: Yeah, but we don’t want to cut it too close, so let’s leave at 6:25.

Me: And we need coffee, so let’s leave at 6:15

Sherri: And, we don’t want to cut it too close, so let’s leave at 6:05.

Needless to say, usually aren’t late for anything (“First ones here, first ones here!”). And, this proved to be useful today. After an uncomfortably warm night in the hotel, we got ready, got out the door at 6:05, and stopped by the local coffee shop. We got in our train in plenty of time, but the train schedule had changed over the past few weeks, and left at 6:50 instead of the originally planned 6:55. Good thing we were there early!

We arrived in Salzburg and headed straight to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. Wow, we could definitely get used to these views!  The fortress is the highest point in Salzburg and the scenery from it is breathtaking! 

  

Miniature Town - Salzburg!

This chair is only good for one knight

We then spent some time wandering around the downtown area. We saw Salzburg Cathedral, Residence Square, and walked around the vibrant market. We also spent some time in the building in which Mozart was born. He lived there until he was 17, and there were many artifacts and great information in the museum there (unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos in the museum). I never knew that he only lived to be 35. And yet, in that short time, he composed over 600 works! What had I done by age 35? Zero pieces of music, unless you count the song “Cool Cats”, which I penned at the ripe young age of 10. 

Mozart's birthplace!

Legwarmers are coming back

Next up was lunch. Today marked Day Two of our pizza detox. The kids still have the shakes (and will even wake up frantically in the middle of the night screaming, “calzones….we’re out of calzones!”) but they are subsiding somewhat. We still haven’t broken it to them that there’s no gelato in Munich. Baby steps. Anyway, back to lunch - we had a great meal of schnitzel, lobster soup, roasted pork belly, and truffle pasta. We typically share bites of everything so all of us can try different things. It was a great lunch, and I was also happy to see that Germany is living up to its reputation when it comes to the beer. 

A tall, cool one for a tall, cool one please

After lunch we took a leisurely stroll through beautiful Mirabell Gardens (prominently featured in Sound of Music). There was a school choir group singing there and it was really nice. 

We then made our way to the bus that would be taking us on a Sound of Music Tour. The bus took us to several different locations from the movie:

• The gazebo where Leisl sings “Sixteen going on seventeen”
• Lake where the kids fell out of the boat
• Church where the Captain and Maria got married

And in between stops, the tour guide led us in singing Sound of Music songs! I didn’t sing any, of course (as far as you know).  We couldn’t have asked for a better day for the tour, too, as the heat has subsided and the weather was amazing and the scenery was gorgeous. 

High on a hill was a lonely goatherd, Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo!

After the tour, we walked about a mile to Barocksaal, St. Peter, which is a ballroom next to St. Peter’s Cathedral in Salzburg. We took our nice clothes out of our backpacks, changed into them, and then went to pick up our tickets for a Mozart Dinner that we booked several months ago. This is another case where being early pays off. We got there at 6:28pm and they started seating at 6:30. So, we got the best seats in the house (aside from the VIP seats, which we did not want to pay triple for) since we were first in line. All I can say is….WOW! The setting was gorgeous. We let the girls have an aperitif (sparkling white wine) before dinner. They all tried it and it wasn’t their thing, so let’s just say I drank an additional aperthreef.  The dinner was three courses and was food based on old recipes from Mozart’s time. Everything was delicious! Musicians and opera singers performed between each course. It was a really neat experience, and we highly recommend it if you are ever in Salzburg. 

Hey, I looked it up....the drinking age in Germany is 14 if accompanied by an adult!

Grapefruit beer. I usually don't like fruit beers but this one was AMAZING!

This tasted way, way, (way, way, way) better than it looked.

After the concert, we changed back into our walking clothes and then walked the 1.3 miles to the train station. It was an absolutely beautiful night and we enjoyed the walk. We got the train station 40 minutes before our scheduled train and saw that there was another train to Munich still on the platform so we ran to it and hopped on. That was a huge win, as we got back to Munich at 12:15am instead of the planned 1am. We walked back to the hotel (which was now at a good temperature since the day was not scorching hot) and crashed after another adventurous day!