Day Twenty Seven

DAY TWENTY SEVEN

Well hello there. Don’t panic this is not Kurt or Glenn writing todays blog… Seems they are both too tired after a very long and exciting day in Salzburg. So let me introduce myself … taraaa … my name is Michael and for those who don’t know, I have known Kurt for over 30 years ;-)

Waking up after a long night, after watching the 3 hours of “The Sound of Music” movie yesterday, Kurt made his way to Betsy and whipped up a top breakfast that included Frankfurters, Mushrooms and different spreads. Thereafter we made our way to the Europark shopping center located about 10 minutes from the hotel where Kurt and Glenn “raided” Saturn (a common electronics store here in Austria, I believe the equivalent is Incredible Connection back in SA) and bought a couple of things they needed. Having had a big breakfast we decided to skip lunch and continue straight to the “Sound of Music” meeting point in town at 13:50.

After walking around a bit we finally found the bus stop and took the “Linie 2” bus to town. The driver was very unfriendly and let us out too early, so we had to chase to get to the meeting point in time, which we however did. There were three other people in the bus. One lady from Australia, one lady from Canada and a gentleman from Texas. The tour guide was a very talkative and very musical British lady. We started from the Mirabellplatz and made our way in the afternoon traffic to the first site Leopold’s Crown Palace (which now hosts the Max Reinhardt Seminar) where most of the porch scenes and the capsizing boat were shot. Apparently the youngest von Trap actor could not swim - Gretal. The Gazebo in which the song “You are 16 going on 17…” was shot, stood next to the Palace was moved to Hellbrunn Palace due to overeager tourists wanting to be Liesl or Rolf…

After that we made it to the lake district (Salzkammergut) and took the scenic route via Lake Fuschel (we drove past the headquarters of Red Bull), Lake Wolfgang (Mozart was named after the lake and not the other way around), Lake Topilitz (Where allegedly some of the 3rd Reich’s treasures were thrown into at the end of World War 2) and Lake Mondsee. On the drive our tour guide, who was very musical, made us sing most of the songs from the film, and I must say that Kurt knew the lyrics to all the songs ;-). In the little village of Mondsee we had time to explore the church where Maria and Captain von Trapp were married at the end of the movie. We used the spare free time to visit a local bakery and had a good Austrian coffee with Apfelstrudel – Apple Strudle.

On the way back to Salzburg Kurt again whole heartedly sang further songs that our tour guide made us sing. The last site we visited was the Mirabell palace where the von Trapp family sang the “Do-Re-Mi…” song on the steps to the Pegasus fountain. After the tour we decided to stroll over the river Salzach, where we took stunning night pictures of the cathedral and the fortress. We were all glad to get into the bus again which took us to the starting point of today’s journey.

The Sound of Music tour revealed that the actual true story of the Von Trapp family on which the Sound of Music musical is based, differed in several aspects from the Hollywood version. In particular, the distances that the family were meant to have travelled on foot at the end of the movie to escape from Salzburg to Switzerland would have been around 300 kms and therefore quite impossible. The family Von Trapp did in fact escape the day before the borders were closed by train to Italy.




Feeling a bit hungry we had quite a ball trying to find the running sushi place which was advertised in one building, but they had obviously moved to another building grmph!*#*! We were however rewarded with a delicious variety of sushi, beef, vegetables, chicken that moved past us on a running conveyer belt. I am glad no one was wearing a tie…

Editors Note: I have never seen Glenn eat so much in the trip to Europe thus far. He so enjoyed grabbing the delicacies that passed before our eyes. I myself am so done with hoofing it everywhere and am looking forward to being reunited with Jessica Jeep and the lux way of life in Durban.