Hollywood Goes to Salzburg

The kids and I seized the opportunity while David was out of the country to make a day trip across the border to Salzburg, in order to re-live all of the thrills and excitement of one of the most popular Hollywood movies of all time (certainly for families with kids): The Sound of Music!  The kids had been asking to do this almost since we arrived in Munich.  We surmised that David would have refused to go on a kitschy, over-the-top bus tour.  He probably would have.  But my regret now is that we had such a good time, and only David could have done this outing justice in a suitably droll and cynical post.  Nevertheless, I’ll muddle through with the help of Tobias’ photos to give you a sense of the place.

Reluctant as I am to participate in organized tour groups, I decided if we were going to do this, we should do it right.  I looked around on-line for tour options (of which there are a number).  They go to the same locations from the film (the buses cross paths all over town), so I was guided by the website that looked most enticing.  We went with Panorama, promising the “Original Sound of Music Tour” (!) – as it happens, other companies also made claims to being the original or first – but I was most convinced by the easy-to-use website, with many movie stills, and descriptions such as,

Our busses were used by the film crew and our limousines carried the stars. After the release of the film, many fans came to Salzburg asking the original sites [sic] - and our drivers could naturally guide them. That's how the "Original Sound of Music Tour" started.

But most especially, I was swayed by this offer:

You would like to wear a dirndl during The Sound of Music Tour and don’t want to buy one?  You can rent them hourly or daily with our partner Rent A Dirndl!

So I paid the exorbitant fees, and we made plans to depart – sans dirndls.  (Two of our fellow-tourists that morning did show up properly out-fitted in dirndls.)  Note: the tours are only in English;  they know their audience .

On any tour like this (a four hour commitment), the whole key is the tour guide.  We lucked out.  Here he is:

Our Austrian-American guide had one parent of each nationality, and spent most of his youth in Florida, so his accent in each language was good, and he had a native’s understanding of American pop culture and Hollywood movies.  More importantly, he had the spirit for this job, just the right blend of encyclopedic knowledge of all things Sound of Music, Salzburg, and the surrounding country, as well as a self-deprecating awareness that the whole enterprise of these tours is rather silly, but can still be a lot of fun.  He had a running stand-up routine from the front of the bus, and kept tossing Tobias additional riddles since he had found a receptive audience in a twelve-year-old boy -- and we happened to be sitting in the front row of the bus.  And, most entertainingly, he told his stories and anecdotes in a tone of voice that was a cross between a gossip-columnist and a bored, sophisticate filled with ennui.

When you have such a job, driving around every day in a bus like this and telling the same stories to streams of tourists, you need to have a sense of humor, making fun of the whole idea, but never making fun of the movie itself or of the people on the tour.  

The tour company – and our guide – did their best to foster the right kind of atmosphere among the participants.  There was a bar with alcoholic refreshments on the bus, and the guide greeted me by saying that I would be expected to sing into the microphone if I was sitting in the front seat.  Perhaps lacking the proper spirit of adventure – or the requisite amount of alcohol – I told him that I would hand the mike over to my neighbor.  To give our guide a break from his non-stop spiel, we did get to listen to – and sing along with – the movie soundtrack for part of our journey outside of the city, as well as watch part of a Chamber of Commerce documentary (starring the actress who played Liesl!) made to celebrate the anniversary of the original and Salzburg’s special role in the film (the mayor of the city also had a part in the documentary, natch).

The bus took us to a host of locations in Salzburg, and off to the lake district surrounding the city, where a number of scenes were shot.  We glanced at some locations from a distance as the guide rattled off more trivia about the movie, and saw some up close or from within.  Here is a sample:

One of the exteriors used for the Trapp villa

Mirabell Gardens where Maria and the children sang Do-Re-Mi

And they kept singing as they ran across the bridge

Town center where both Maria and the Nazis paraded (in different scenes)

More at the Mirabell Palace

The lunch break (where we were released for a little over an hour to wander on our own) was in a small town outside of Salzburg which had THE church where Maria got married!  

(Someone else was getting married the day we were there.)

This town, like Salzburg itself, subsists on tourism, as Americans (and a few others) make Sound of Music pilgrimages, and Barvarians travel around the beautiful lake district in the nice weather.  In Salzburg, most of the tourists flock to the old town center, with narrow Medieval streets, reminding me of our excursions through another tourist town, Riva del Garda, a few months before.  Although there was a precious, make-believe air to the whole place, it was just pretty and charming enough to nevertheless feel authentic.

River Salzach with view of Altstadt (Old Town)

(Turns out there were love locks in Salzburg, too.  And Berlin, as well.  Maybe this tradition is spread throughout Central Europe?)

Aside from The Sound of Music, the main draw in Salzburg is all things Mozart.  Following a morning spent on American pop culture,  we set off to explore Salzburg on foot, including one of Mozart’s houses. 

 

The three of us felt rather let down here.  I don’t think it was just that it lacked the pizzazz of our excursion earlier in the day.  The museum was poorly done, with some confusing narratives, and neither a strong sense of Mozart the Prodigy nor a clear arc of his life and work.  The tour through the house ended with a stilted documentary which seems to have been acquired on the cheap by the folks who run the museum.   

Perhaps the Mozart House should explore the possibility of hiring Panorama-trained guides, serving alcohol, and renting out wigs and 18^th century garb for visitors to wear?

Posted by Michelle and Tobias