The Sound of Music

I had a friend in high school who got to go on the Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg, Austria, and I remember being so jealous. I wanted to go on it as soon as possible, and as it turns out the first weekend of free travel was the best time. We traveled with Frau Swann and her husband Jarrin, two of the adult leaders on this trip. We had a great weekend… I am so glad we went with them!
On Friday morning, we woke up early and left Vienna around 6 a.m. We arrived in Salzburg just in time for the nine o’clock Sound of Music tour. Now there are two companies who give this tour- they both have buses, but one of them has a picture of Julie Andrews and all the children slapped on the side, painted by someone who missed their calling in life. We luckily took the other bus.
Our guide was a jolly woman from Great Britain who smiled and laughed and made us all smile and laugh. In the summer the tours are usually packed, but by this time in the season they are almost deserted. I actually preferred the quieter tour- we were able to talk more with our guide, and she took pictures of us and made us laugh even more. We saw the gazebo from the movie, the house and lake where Maria and the children took a plunge, the church where Maria was married, and the abbey where Maria stood in the “I have confidence” scene.
I think the best thing about the tour was the fact that we drove for a good hour and a half around Austria. We saw snowy mountains, quaint villages, and scenic outlooks that we would not have seen otherwise. The driver blared tunes from the movie, and we sang along while enjoying the beauty of our second home. After the tour, we walked around the absolutely stunning city of Salzburg. I think that Austria is my favorite country in Europe…. Vienna and Salzburg are, as Mary Poppins would say, “practically perfect in every way.” Mozart was born in Salzburg, and we saw his birthplace before eating one of the best meals of my time in Europe. The café was nestled behind Mozart’s house in an ivy-covered building, and I ate chili, German bread, and apple strudel with vanilla sauce (my favorite) enthusiastically.
Unfortunately, our time in Salzburg was much too short. I could have stayed there by the majestic river, quaint houses, and manicured gardens all day, but we had to catch a train before heading on to our next adventure. Our plan was to spend the night in Fussen, Germany, before visiting the castle at Neuschwanstein Friday morning. Unfortunately, we missed a train connection, and we ended up a couple of hours out of our way. We were all tired and somewhat grumpy, a situation born out of the fact that we had left Vienna at five a.m. that morning and it was now nearing midnight.
An irritable old man pushed past us rudely as the train came to a stop. In German, he told Frau Swan that this was his stop. As his stop happened to be our stop, we hurried to gather our belongings. I followed the Swans off the train with the three other girls behind me, and turned around just in time to see the train begin to move. Fast. Frantically, we began pulling the other girls off the train. By the time Ricki, the last one, dismounted, the train was moving at almost full speed. Breathless, we stood laughing and hugging Ricki, until one of us looked around and said “Uh oh.” For truth be told, we were not at a train station at all; we were in the middle of a field, nowhere near civilization, and our train was leaving. We all simultaneously broke into a run and began chasing our train with arms flying. The grumpy old man, the only person who got off the train with us, began saying inappropriate things in German, until miraculously the train stopped. Without knowing why it had stopped, we joyfully re-boarded the train which we had just leapt from. The conductor angrily walked down the aisle asking who had pulled the emergency brake. Someone must have seen us and taken pity. Embarrassed, we took our seats, trying not to acknowledge the look on every face which seemed to say “You are stupid Americans!”