Salzburg, Austria

This weekend's trip was the Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg, Austria!  We watched the movie last week to refresh our memory (A had never seen it!), and I now remember just how much we LOVE this movie!!  This was one of T's favorites for several years...I wish I had counted how many times she watched it from the age of 3 to about 6!!

Salzburg was good, but we may have to try the trip again to give it a fair chance.  The weather was rainy and VERY cold...which made our day almost miserable!!!  We also weren't aware that our Sound of Music Tour was a bus tour.  After a 5-hour bus ride, the kids were not thrilled to get back on a bus for a 4 hour tour!!  The tour took us to several of the movie locations, and we could get off the bus for about 5 minutes and take pictures, then back on the bus to a new location.

When the bus tour was over, at 1:30, we started walking around to find a place to feed our starving kids.  Most places here open for lunch from around 11:00-2:00, then re-open again for dinner at 4:00.  By the time we found restaurants, they were already closed for lunch!!!  We walked, and walked, and walked.  We were hoping for some authentic Austrian food, but all we found was a noodle place! : )  It was a neat little restaurant, and everything was organic and healthy, so it was a neat experience.  Just not quite what we were expecting!

We were hoping to go up and visit the fortress just outside of town, but by the time we ate there wasn't enough time to tour the castle and make it back in time to meet our bus home.  So we found a neat little ice cream shop instead!

Then we went back to the meeting place for the bus...and waited...and waited...and waited...in the cold and the rain!  There was a mixup about pickup locations, and our bus driver was waiting for us at a different location.  So after about 45 minutes of waiting, we had to walk a few blocks to where our bus was waiting to pick us up.  Needless to say, we were tired and a wee bit grumpy!  At one point little R (who had been a real trooper the entire day) said "Daddy, I just can't take it anymore!"  And we felt exactly the same way!!

We were actually thrilled to get on the bus, get our wet shoes off, and head home!! Little R had his sandwich and chocolate milk on the bus, played games on the Ipod for a while, and at about 7:45, he said, "I'm ready to go to sleep now." And sleep he did! The entire way home!! : )

Our drop-off point in Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

This was the building used as the outside of the residence in the movie.  The terrace where they had pink lemonade; the lake where the kids were in the boat.

The gazebo!  "I am 16, going on 17"!!

I just thought this beautiful!  This is the entrance to where the gazebo is.

The tree lined road where Maria first comes up the house; and where the kids are climbing in the trees in their "curtain" clothes!

The weather kept us from seeing the meadow of the opening shots of the movie, but this town was beautiful! 

The church where the wedding was filmed.

Inside the church...beautiful!

The ice cream shop!!  DE-LISH-US!!!

Mozart's residence.  Somehow one of the few pictures of R we got on this trip!

Just a neat alley way we took to get to the shopping area.