The Hills Are Alive, With the Sound of… Rain (Day 7)

Up with the alarm at 7:30 to, yup, light rain. We showered, dressed, and went down to the breakfast included in our stay. As usual, corn flakes and a croissant for me, muesli on top of yogurt and a croissant for Aileen. Add in one cup of coffee each, and we’re on the road by 10:00 a.m. We stopped to fuel up at a BP enroute; fuel is less expensive in Austria than Germany by about 17 cents (Euro) per liter – that’s about 80 cents (US) per gallon cheaper, so it’s worthwhile even at $6.81 per gallon. Thanks goodness our rental gets about 33 miles per gallon.

Our Lady of Perpetual Navigation (my name for the lady inside our rented Garmin GPS unit) guided us to the front door of our hotel flawlessly, and we arrived around 11:30. We  could leave the car parked right in front of the Hotel Mercure Salzburg Kapuziner for free, or pay $11 to park in the garage; our first real no brainer of the trip. But we couldn’t check-in until 3:00 p.m., so we loaded up the backpack and started walking toward the city center.

Our hotel was just off the edge of our map, and it was raining, which made celestial navigation impossible. We made a few false starts, then picked up a more detailed map of the city in a hotel lobby – this made walking to any destination a lot easier.

Our first stop was St. Sebastian’s Church. Even though Mass was at 9:30 a.m. and it was after noon when we arrived, the air was still quite clouded with a fog of incense – enough that Aileen had to leave before she got a headache. The church, which dates back to the late 16^th century, is small and quaint – but the graveyard attached to the church is what provides its notoriety:

This graveyard served as the inspiration for where the vonTrapp family hides during their escape from Salzburg in The Sound of Music (TSoM). Crypts of many families occupy the four sides of the graveyard, and the center of the courtyard contains graves dating back to the 1600’s (including Mozart’s mother). Compared to American headstones,the face of these stones tend to contain a poem or other verse (of significance to the deceased, I would suppose), while the names and dates of those buried in the family plot are carved into the sides of the stones.

After buying an umbrella for me (it would be a hit with any music director, as it is adorned with musical notes - although I selected it because it was the cheapest functional umbrella I could find), we walked across the Salzach River to the Nonnberg Convent. The nunnery was founded around the year 700(!), and the current convent was finished in 1423. The Convent Church is a relative newcomer, built in 1464 through 1506. It was VERY dark in the church; the following photo shows much more detail than what my eyes were able to capture at the time:

Again, the convent is famous from TSoM, as it not only served as the basis for the convent in the movie; it’s where the real Maria vonTrapp studied. And if that hadn’t happened, Julie Andrews’ career would have peaked with Mary Poppins….

And in the following picture, can’t you see the vonTrapp children asking if they could please speak to Fraulein Maria after she returns to the convent?

OK; how about if you remove the trash can and recycling bin just to the left of the gate, and the Honda Nighthawk motorcycle parked across the path – can you visualize it better then?

We walked on to der Alt Stadt (old city), and tried to get into the Dom (Salzburg Cathedral, the current building dating back to the 1700’s) and the Festspielhaus (Festival Hall, which was where the vonTrapp family gave their final concert), but both were closed getting ready for the Salzburg Music Festival. The Festival starts a two-week run on the 20^th, and I’m glad we missed the congestion that accompanies it!

The clouds were beginning to break up, so we found a small café, and eased our disappointment (and our feet) with Apfelstrudel, Milchraumstrudel mit vanillin sauce, and two Cokes. I’ve had apple strudel before, but milchraumstrudel is something I plan to Google and try baking once I get home. It’s a type of airy, cake textured cheesecake with thick, warm vanilla sauce that combines three of my basic food groups (dairy, grain, and sugar) into something amazing.

Our final tourist stop of the day was at the Mirabell Gardens, site of the Mirabell Fountain used as the setting for “Do Re Mi” in, yes, that movie. Aileen spotted one really weird plant in the garden, so I’m including it for all of the Master Gardeners following this blog:

We walked back to our hotel, arriving around 4:30, and checked in. Aileen studied for about an hour and a half for the P.T. Board exam she’ll be taking on July 31^st. It also turns out that there’s a Mickey D’s restaurant on the same street as our hotel, so we took that as a sign. We dined on a New York Classic and Hamburger Royal TS – variations on a well-known theme. We were back at the hotel by 7:30, and watched some TV before Aileen crashed at 8:50. It’s now 10:20, and I’ll be in bed around 11.

Tomorrow, we have a three and a half hour drive to Vienna, although we may stop enroute at Mondsee and see where Maria marries der Kapitan in you-know-what.

Finally, two other facts that I didn’t know about The Sound of Music: (1) When Georg looks up at the mountains in Salzburg and says that they’re going to walk to freedom in Switzerland, there’s a problem: Switzerland is actually over 100 miles away from Salzburg, so you really can’t see the Swiss Alps. (2) It really doesn’t matter that they couldn’t see the Switzerland, because one of the other Sound of Music sites that you can visit is the train station where Maria , Georg, and the brood actually got on the passenger train that they rode to freedom. But I can also see why Hollywood chose the hiking option…. Guten nacht.

Distance report: 53 km (car), 9 km (by foot), 39 miles for the day, TBD miles so far this trip.