Do, a Deer, a Female Deer... Salzburg, Austria!

Since we're in Europe, in December, it would be unacceptable to not make it to at least one or two Christmas markets. Last year we loved visiting the markets in Dresden and Prague. So earlier this year I did my research on the top ten markets in Europe and we eventually settled on visiting Salzburg and Copenhagen.

Our first stop at the beginning of the month was Salzburg, which is about a five hour train ride from Zurich. We headed out on Friday night with a late arrival scheduled in Salzburg, so we knew we would have to make Saturday and the better half of Sunday count to get the most out of our short weekend trip. And you guessed it, first up on Saturday morning was the Sound of Music Tour! As I quickly came to find out Salzburg is famous for music. It is a relatively small city (population of only about 150,000) in comparison to how famous it is, but Mozart and the Von Trapp family made this city a popular tourist destination, especially for Americans. I know I called Vienna the "City of Mozart" in a previous blog, but Salzburg may actually have more history as Mozart's birthplace. However, it did not seem to play it up quite as much as Vienna, which is where Mozart is popular for living much of his life and performing many of his masterpieces.

Having fun on the Sound of Music Tour!

First, as we headed out our hotel on Saturday morning to meet up for the start of the Sound of Music tour we stopped in a small cafe to grab a quick coffee and muffin and we met a man that makes my running look like a joke. While we were waiting for our order I noticed some newspaper articles posted and only being able to decipher parts of the German report I figured it was something about this man who looked like the man at the counter running long distance races. Well long distance was an understatement - he ran 700 mile races! He spoke english well and so he started telling us about all of his training, races, etc. He was a serious runner! Don't worry I won't be getting any ideas...

Yes, that was seriously our tour bus!

So, the Sound of Music Tour. Yes it may sound a little hokey, and it was indeed, especially with our goofy tour guide who had clearly been doing this tour 15 years too many (he said he had done the tour for 16 years and I can only imagine what listening to that music everyday does to you...). However, we decided to take it less for the fact that we would be visiting spots around the city and countryside where the movie was filmed and more for the reason that it was supposed to be a wonderful tour of the area. It was indeed a very nice tour, but unfortunately the weather was not as nice as we had been hoping as parts of the countryside just outside of Salzburg are supposed to be gorgeous under clearer conditions. But since Steve made me watch the movie the week before we went (I knew I had watched it before but honestly remembered very little of it), we were intrigued to also learn many details of the movie - what was true and what was not, where they had to did some filming tricks and how in fact they did not simply hike over the mountains into Switzerland in the last scene of the movie. Rather perhaps what I found most humorous was that if they had hiked over that particular mountain range where they had filmed them they would have gone straight into Germany!

The back side of the Von Trapp house in the movie... they actually filmed a different house for the front side.

View of the Salzkammergut region outside of Salzburg, scenic area and
famous for the precious salt mines during the Habsbug era.

Wedding church in the Sound of Music actually located outside Salzburg in the town of Mondsee

The Mondsee church was beautiful on the inside.

A Sound of Music painted cow - Emma seemed to think it was funny!

After a morning of hearing Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do over and over again in a bus of American tourists (the movie is not popular at all in this part of the world), we were ready to venture out and get a taste of the old historic heart of Salzburg. After meandering through the town we made our way to the funicular that brought us up to Hohensalzburg Fortress, which towers over the entire city. While impressive in appearance from the city below we were a bit disappointed once we got to the top (I think we're starting to get spoiled as we compare it to other castles we have seen throughout Europe, so don't get me wrong it is still very impressive). From there to finish off the day we visited one of the smaller Christmas markets as there were several throughout the city and got ourselves geared up to go to the main one early on Sunday.

View of the Hohensalzburg Fortress in the distance

We were glad we got an early start on Sunday as it was nice to make our way through the main market without the crowds that we saw late on Saturday where you could barely push your way through the squares. Regardless of the time of day, it was easy to see why the Salzburg market made the top ten list. It was first of all in a beautiful setting with the Dom Cathedral and part of a palace surrouding the market squares. It was also a bit more organized than others we had been to and easy to get around and all of the booths had beautiful decorations and crafts to sell. And like all good Christmas markets they had ample booths selling hot mulled wines (gluhwein) and liquors, but to our surprise there was very little real food as we expected to see the typical sausage stands that are popular throughout this part of Europe. Yet, we found lots of sweets including a monstrous soft pretzel covered in a chocolate coating and filled with a fruit jam - talk about spoiling our dinner!

Salzburg Christmas market early in the morning before the crowds

Steve & Emma enjoying the market and views of the Dom Cathedral

And while the bulk of Sunday morning and early afternoon was spent enjoying the market, we got to sneak inside the Dom Cathedral for a few minutes and take a look around yet another beautiful European church. We also briefly visited the Panorama Museum which holds a panoramic painting of the city of Salzburg from the 1829. Evidently there were many such paintings of various European cities at one point in time, but most of them have been destroyed or lost. It might have not been anything amazing it was still a pretty impressive piece of artwork. And although we were surprised to see what was in the rest of the museum, we should have guessed that the majority of the museum was dedicated to the Sound of Music (funny thing was none of the tour books we read even mentioned that!).

Enjoying Mirabell Gardens with a view of the Fortress

Sunday certainly went way too fast as we found ourselves headed back to the train station by mid- afternoon, but we felt we successfully managed to fit a lot into our 48 hours in Salzburg. And although we did not try any extremely different foods as much of it was quite similar to Switzerland, my favorite was our last stop on Sunday when we tried the Salzburger Nockerl, which is a very sweet souffle made with stiff egg whites. I'll just be sure not to order such a large one next time!

It said it was for two people, but for good reason Emma wanted to help her parents out!

And with a successful trip of touring, exploring, eating & drinking we were headed back to Zurich. Unfortunately Emma's travels were a bit more difficult this time around then it had been on her last trip. I believe much of this is simply due to her growing curiosity as she seems to even hesitate to take a nap because she is so worried she might miss something going on around her. Yet, I have learned that when we travel I'm doing everything I can to ensure Emma has socks that stay on her feet. She often kicks them off and that was the case on Sunday night on our way home as I stood holding her for awhile in a corridor on the train trying to get her to fall asleep. Just about as she was asleep some crazy lady felt the need to not only come up and give me a lecture about how one of her socks wasn't on (it was in my hand as she had just kicked it off and it was plenty warm on the train) but she proceeded to have to feel Emma's toes and act like she was keeping them warm. Of course Emma woke up crying just as she had started to fall asleep...

And so goes every trip, not everything can go perfectly. Somedays Emma does better than others, but we always enjoy them. It's so much fun to explore new places with her and the more and more she becomes aware of her surroundings it is fun to see her reaction as she sees and experiences new things. No doubt traveling is different with her and a bit more work than it was with just the two of us, but most days it really is more fun too. Can't wait to continue to watch her be amazed as we explore new places!

Cold and snowing but beautiful view over the Salzach River