When we arrived we didn't have directions to our place and figured we would find a coffee shop or something where we could get the internet. It turns out it, Bad Reichenhall was a really small town and just about everything closed around 7pm. I felt a small sense of panic but found a book store open and asked them for help. They were super nice and allowed me to use their computer to get directions. They insisted on calling to make sure our host was home and then offered to give us a ride so we wouldn't have to take a bus and/or get lost. Lol. It was so nice. There were two men working in this store. One of them said he had visited the US many years ago, had a very positive experience, and he was happy to help us. The man who gave us the ride was Helmut. He lived close by our place but told us he would have given us a ride even if it was on the opposite side of town. He knows what it is like to travel and how much the kindness of a stranger can mean. We were very grateful and felt very blessed.
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| Helmut |
When we checked into our place, the woman told us they upgraded us from a room to a suite. Honestly, it was more like a whole apartment with two bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a living room, a kitchen and a patio. It was about the size of our apartment back home. Apparently the suite was not being used and she thought we would feel more comfortable there. We talked for a while and she had mentioned there was a grocery store and bank a little down the street and a castle a bit further down the street. She asked why we came to this little town. We told her why we were there and she offered to give us a ride to Salzburg the next morning for our tour. More blessings :).
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| The view of the mountains from our patio |
After we settled in a little we decided to take a walk to the grocery store. I was excited to cook us dinner. We hadn't planned on having a kitchen so I had prepared sandwiches before we left Munich. We walked down the street a ways but couldn't find the store. We saw a young couple walking our way so we stopped and asked them for directions. Florian and Regina, the young couple, said the closest grocery store was in town (about a 15 minute drive). I explained to them what our host had told us and they said the woman was talking about a little convenience store but it closed at 6pm. They were concerned we wouldn't have food and offered us food and something to drink back at their place. We thanked them but told them we had sandwiches we could eat. They said the store opened early if we wanted to get breakfast in the morning before heading into Salzburg. They were very kind to offer complete strangers food, but that is not all, they also invited us to come over the next night. It was like having unexpected, instant friends. Well, you know me and Steve, we cant refuse a social invitation, so we told them we would love to hang out with them the following night. :-). Our first day In this town and everyone was so friendly and welcoming to us. They embraced us with arms wide open.
The next morning we were off to Salzburg!!!! I was so excited and I could hardly contain myself! We arrived at the tour bus and I was not alone. Everyone else was full of energy and excitement too. :-) Our guide and bus driver were really nice. The guide's name was Jennifer (what a cool coincidence). She was bubbly, seemingly happy to be there to share fun movie facts with us, and she spoke with a lovely British accent. She guided us to all the important places the and lead us in a sing-a-long and the hills came alive again with the sound of music. Granted our voices weren't as beautiful and as on key as Julia Andrews' but we all still had fun. The bus driver, Lazlow, was great too, at times he would honk the horn along with our singing.
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| Us with Jennifer our lovely tour guide |
We sat with nice people on the bus. There was a woman from the states who sat across from us. She was a retired school teacher (maybe in her early 60s) and her husband refused to come with her on this tour. Lol. I am glad I have a man who likes musicals and puts up with my crazy desires to recount my favorite things through song.
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| Behind us sat the cutest old couple, Eleanor And Peter, who had been married for 50 years. Peter was originally from Austria but they have lived in WA for many years now. They were a joy to be with. Through conversation we found out they were Christian too and they prayed for and with us at the end of our tour. Before we parted we took a picture with them and exchanged information. They told us we always have a place to stay in WA if we want to come visit. They really were a sweet couple. It is inspiring that they are still so much in love and still travelling abroad at their age. We hope to see them again some day. |
Okay, now the moment you have all been waiting for. . . Especially those of you who are crazy fans of the movie like me :) (Please excuse the quality of these photos as our camera broke the day before, so I had to use my iPhone.)
You would suspect we would have started out epically singing "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music" just as Maria did when the movie starts, but we didn't. We actually started out by going to see the Von Trapp's home.
****Fun movie fact****Julia Andrews had to sing that song upon that mountain top multiple times in order to get this scene perfect. The filming helicopter was so low, the wind from its rotor blades kept knocking Julia over in the middle of this memorable scene. The wind was so violent it pushed her down very hard. By the end of filming this scene, her arms were all black and blue. This is why, you will notice, Maria is usually wearing blouses with long sleeves. Ouch! If it was me, the hills would be alive with the sound of screaming from pain. lol
In the movie, the Von Trapp family home was actually two different houses. We stopped by the "back side" of their house first.
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| This is where Maria and the kids fell into the lake right before meeting the Captain's girlfriend, the Baroness, for the first time. |
****Fun movie fact****This is a man made lake and it freezes over during the winter. It is even used by the locals for ice skating. Austria had had a late winter and at the time this scene was filmed the water had just melted so it was nearly freezing! The director wanted to do this scene at the beginning of the shoot because it was one of the hardest scenes to film. The first time they did it, the director said it wasn't dramatic enough so they all had to fall into the ice cold lake again. Maria was supposed to fall off the front of the boat, get Gretl and carry her ashore because the little actress didn't know how to swim. In the second take of this scene, Maria accidentally fell into the back of the boat instead of the front like she was supposed to. Poor little Gretl. Thankfully she was saved by Louisa. Of course the director wanted to do it again but the whole cast refused to do another take (I can't blame them. Who wants to get hypothermia?) If you look closely, you will be able to see Maria fall off the back of the boat before the camera flashes to an upset Captain and then back to, a record breaking swimmer, Maria who is now walking with Gretl in front of the boat. They had to use both takes and merged them into one.
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| While singing "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" We drove past the Abbey Unfortunately we could not go in because it is still an active Abbey to this day. |
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| This is the street Maria walked and danced down on the way to the Captain's house while she sung "I Have Confidence." |
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| This is the "front side" of the Von Trapp manor. You will notice the front side of the house is painted yellowish-orange. This color paint, in Austria, is reserved specifically for families of royal or noble blood. |
****Fun movie fact****Remember when Maria was singing "I Have Confidence", she entered the gate to the house and as she was walking up to the door, she tripped? Julia Andrews accidentally tripped but the director liked it and kept it in the film because it went with Maria's personality. Ha ha ha ha
****Fun fact: the person who used to own the mansion had many fountains and loved to entertain. At his dinner table the seats were rigged with water hoses and If he got bored with his guests he would turn on the water and have a good laugh. This also signalled for his watered down guests to leave. Can you imagine?!?! LOL. What nerve.
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| This is the famous gazebo where Rolfe and Liesl sung "16 going on 17" and the Captain and Maria sung "Something Good." This is not the original site but it is the original gazebo. The original site was on private property but the musical loving fans kept trespassing to get photos and singing so loudly that the owners requested the gazebo be moved. So here it stands. Not the same romantic background but it is still cool to see it. |
****Not so fun fact****We were not able to go inside; they keep it locked for people's safety. It used to be open before a 60 year old woman tried jumping from bench to bench, as Liesl did with Rolfe in the movie. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that particular scene was filmed on a studio set in Hollywood where the benches were a lot closer than they actually are in this gazebo.
****Fun movie fact****During the filming of the Captain's and Maria's romantic moment where they are confessing their love for one another and singing "Something Good", they were having a laughing attack. Apparently the lighting system they were using kept making noises and in the middle of a take both actors would start cracking up. They couldn't shoot a serious love scene with that noise going on in the background. They took over 20 takes to no avail. The director told them they needed to do the scene straight under the lighting they had provided or they would have to shoot in natural light to hide their faces. As you can see in the movie, they chose natural light. Their faces are in shadows a lot of the time and you can even see the Captain smirking a few times during their love scene. :-)
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| This was shown in the opening credits |
After a while we moved on with our tour and drove for around an hour or so through the hills and mountain ranges seen in he movie. Part of this tour was a sing-a-long so of course we sang along the way. We sung "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", and "Climb Every Mountain".
****Fun Fact**** In the 1980s President Ronald Reagen played Edelweiss to welcome the Austrian ambassador and his wife as their guests of honour at a White House banquet. Unfortunately the president thought this song was their national anthem when in reality this song was written specifically for the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music. Oops ;-(
****Fun Fact**** In the 1980s President Ronald Reagen played Edelweiss to welcome the Austrian ambassador and his wife as their guests of honour at a White House banquet. Unfortunately the president thought this song was their national anthem when in reality this song was written specifically for the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music. Oops ;-(
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| We stopped at Lake Wolfgang (with this name we did think if of our dear friend Wolfgang from Switzerland) to admire the beauty of God's creation. This Lake was featured in one of the opening scenes of the movie. |
****Fun movie facts****The little actress that played Gretl was not the most corporative and was a bit of a diva. To get her to behave, they started giving little Gretl hot chocolate and chocolate cake. Whenever she started to act up she would be given these little bribes or to reward her for her good behaviour she would receive these too. As you can imagine, little Gretl gained about 15 lbs. during the filming process.
In the final scene where the Von Trapp family is walking over the mountains, you may notice you never see little Gretl's face. That is because Christopher Plummer had his own "diva moment" and refused to carry the chubby little girl over the mountain and insisted on a stunt double being used.
***Fun fact**** The mountain they are climbing in the final scene would have put them right into a Nazi hands. The mountain separated Austria and Germany. The real Von Trapps went by train to Italy, then to England and finally over to America. Glad they didn't climb that mountain. ;-)
The next stop we made was to the church where Maria and the Captain got married. Wow was this surreal. The movie makes this church appear as if it is attached to the Abbey, which it isn't, and it seems HUGE and grand but it was so little!!!! The wedding was filmed at is the Collegiate Church of St. Michael in Mondsee, Austria.
The entrance to this city is where Max and the Baroness were first introduced to us as they drove down a road lined with trees. The Captain looks up and sees his kids playing, laughing in the trees, and having a splendid time. Guess who else had fun in the trees :-)
We spent a little time here and got some home made strudel for lunch :) yummmm oh yeah, and a piece of Sacher Torte--some chocolate cake they say is a speciality on Salzburg (I wasn't impressed. Maybe somewhere else would have been better).
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| Cute little town |
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| Treats! |
On our way back to Salzburg we sung two songs. We sung "Do-Re-Mi" first. The last place we would stop on this tour was the Mirabell Palace's Gardens where the majority of this song was filmed.
****Fun movie fact****This song was filmed in 10 different locations and they did about 50 takes in each location to get this song to turn out they way they wanted.
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| Singing on the steps. It looses something when you don't have a whole clan singing with Julia Andrews. |
There is one last song left to sing .
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night. I hate to go and leave this pretty sight. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu.
It was a wonderful day and an amazing tour! It was definitely worth the trip to Salzburg. Although we learned many facts that could potentially ruin the Hollywood magic, on the contrary, it made this movie more special to us.
On the way back to Bad Reichenhall we met a nice guy on the train named Julian. When we got to our stop we asked him if he knew of a store where we could buy ourselves a new camera. He said he had an idea of where we could go. He said he had a few hours before he had to be at work and offered to take us there. It was very kind and we took him up on his offer. We went to the first store, who suggested we go to another store only to be referred to yet another store. lol Julian was very patient in taking us all over town and interpreting for us. We did finally find a camera! It was cool how God worked it out too because we had bought 2 spare batteries for our, now broken, camera before we left the States and we were able to find a replacement camera that used the same batteries. Now we have 3 spares. On top of which this particular camera was on sale! It was definitely a blessing finding this camera and meeting Julian. After we purchased our new camera the three of us went out for ice cream.
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| Julian, you were a total blessing and we are thankful we met you!!!! |
To top off the perfect day, we were looking forward to going over to Florian and Regina house for an evening of fun. They had told us they got home at 6pm. We weren't sure if they wanted us there at 6pm or if they needed some down time before having company. We were also unsure if we were all going to have dinner together or if we should eat before going over. Our etiquette says you need to bring something with us to present them as a thank you for having us over but what do we bring? We thought about wine but Regina was pregnant so we decided against that. If we were having dinner we would bring a dessert. It dawned on us we probably should have figured out some of these details before we parted ways the night before. lol We ended up going over around 7pm and bringing sparkling apple cider and Dickmans (remember this yummy treat we had in Hamburg?). They were excited to see us and had dinner waiting for us all on the back patio. It was super sweet. We were overwhelmed by their kindness. We spent the evening sharing stories and getting to know each other. I think we talked until 10:30 pm., and after a few more stories, I think we ended up leaving around midnight. They had to get up at 5 am the next morning for work so we said our goodbyes. It was such a lovely night. It felt so normal and natural to be with them.
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| The four of us :) |
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| Florian and Regina, you will be amazing parents. I hope this is not the last time our paths cross. |
After reading this blog do you understand why I said this is one of the friendliest places we have visited? It was a humbling experience. Steve and I hope and aspire to be like this to people we come in contact with in the future.This town definitely left it's mark in our hearts.
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