The hills are alive...

DISCLAIMER: Similar to Entertainment Weekly magazine’s “plot spoiler” warnings (to warn readers of a plot outcome before the film or TV episode is aired), don’t read this if you don't want to the know the “behind the scenes” stories of the SoM. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining your happy memories of this movie.

We took THE tour on Sunday. Although it was raining, it did not deter busloads of other film-buffs like ourselves from visiting all the sights from The Sound of Music film. This tour is big business! Multiple tour companies run this tour twice daily, so there is no shortage of opportunities to see the gazebo where Rolf and Leisel met for their secret rendezvous or the church where Maria and the Baron were married.

An important fact that we were already aware of but apparently was new info for some of our fellow tourists. The Sound of Music film is loosely based on the lives of Maria von Trapp and the Trapp family, with much liberty being taken with the events in the story along with many of the on-location locales used in the filming.

First, if you remember at the start of the film, there is no way that Maria climbed down the Untersberg (the 1850 meter high mountain where Maria twirled around and sang “the hills are alive…”) and ran back to the abbey in less than 5 minutes because she was late for prayers. If that had been the case, we’d have been better off signing her up for an Olympic team.

Secondly, as you may recall, the von Trapps climbed over the Alps at the end of the movie, leaving Austria for Switzerland in order to escape the Nazis. Well, if the family had really followed this route in reality, they would have hiked right over into Germany, which was obviously not what they were wanting to do. The truth is that the von Trapps did escape Salzburg, but they did so by train.

There were several other little “white lies” in the film, but I suppose I shouldn’t really spoil it for you hard-core Sound of Music addicts. I can tell you that our bus tour not only visited many of the scenes filmed in the actual film, but we were treated with a re-play of the SoM film soundtrack…and yes, people actually sang along.

So, without further ado….I give you The Sound of Music tour….

Leopoldskron Palace...one of the scenes of the Baron's house in the SoM. This was actually the backside of the von Trapp house…not the front of the house nor the interiors of this house were used. This was the view that showed the lake where the children fell out of the boat.



PS: We did see the actual house that was used for the front exterior shots of the Baron’s house, but sadly it is private property and therefore we could not stop and take photos. Somehow, the owners are tired of the all the bus tours past their home...can't imgaine why? Also, all the interior shots of buildings were filmed on Hollywood sound stages.

Some of the shots from the von Trapp home were also filmed at Hellbrun Palace.



How do you solve a problem like Maria? You marry her off…St. Michael's Church in Mondsee, site of the marriage of Maria and Baron von Trapp in the movie. In reality, there were married in a church in Salzburg.





I wish I had more interior church photos to share, but the church was under MAJOR renovation. Yes, the trend is alive and well for finding at least one site on a Hachie Gal trip under major renovation.

Mirabell Gardens was the site of many of the scenes from the Do-Re-Mi song. The Budman and I in these lovely gardens.



Maria and the children danced with these statues.



The Pegasus Fountain where the children danced around with Maria.



Next, Maria and children running and singing under the vine covered trellis.



The garden stairs where the children danced and sang at the end of Do-Re-Mi.



St. Sebastian - some of the scenes of the abbey were filmed here.



Sadly, we did not get to see Nonnberg Abbey up close, nor tour it; this is the abbey where Maria was a postulate.

During her "confidence song", Maria walks through the arches, through the square, and splashes in the fountain enroute to the von Trapp house.



Hachie Gal walks the same route Maria travelled as she left the abbey for the von Trapps house at the start of the movie.



The Budman and I are definitely no longer “sixteen, going on seventeen”…



The Mozart footbridge (far left) that Maria and the children ran across dressed in their curtain clothes enroute to a picnic.