Salzburg, Austria

Medieval McDonalds Arches - Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

'Sound of Music' Gazebo - Hellbrunn Palace, Austria

'Sound of Music' Cathedral - Mondsee, Austria

Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce (Pat's Favorite) - Mondsee, Austria

Who's That Austrian? - Mondsee, Austria

Getreidegasse Street - Salzburg, Austria

Mirabell Gardens & Hohensalzburg Fortress - Salzburg, Austria

Mirabell Gardens & Schloss Palace - Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria (6/6-8/2011) - Visiting beautiful Salzburg was like an elegant desert after our visits to Budapest, Prague, and Krakow. This small city with a population of only 150,000 is bigger than life famous for being Mozart’s birthplace, the setting of the “Sound of Music” movie, Europe’s largest intact medieval castles, and flowers ever where! 

We had so much fun in Salzburg reliving the movie by taking 'The Sounds of Music Tour' and doing the Sound of Salzburg Dinner Show. Because of this we will probably burst out in songs composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein for some time to come. Many of the sites we visited in Salzburg can be referenced by songs in the movie. See the photo of the beautiful Mirabell Gardens, Pegasus Fountain, and Hohensalzburg Fortress (Castle) from the “Do-Re-Mi” steps. We also visited the Leopoldskron Palace made famous in the boat turnover scene, the glass gazebo at Hellbrunn Palace where Rolf and Liesl sang “Sixteen, Going on Seventeen” and Maria and the Captain sang “Something Good”, and the Salzburg Lake District where the unforgettable “The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music” song was recorded. 

In nearby Mondsee, we visited the Cathedral where Maria’s wedding scene was filmed. Of course, we did visit other places such as Mozart’s birthplace, Salzburg Cathedral, St. Peter’s Cemetery, and Salzburg's fascinating Getreidegasse street made famous with its old wrought-iron signs that describe the stores. Check out the photo of the medieval McDonalds sign. 

In Salzburg, we enjoyed our visit to the huge 1,000-seat Augustiner Braustubl brewery beer hall. They serve one kind of beer (theirs) and we had fish roasted on a stick. Immediately surrounding the old town are green belts giving Salzburg a rural feel. People use their bikes a lot in Salzburg with special bike lanes throughout the city. 

Some history… The name Salzburg literally means "Salt Castle" deriving its name from the barges carrying salt on the Salzach River, which were subject to a toll in the 8th century. Salzburg has been the capital of an independent state from the early 14th century until 1805. Salzburg was ruled by prince-archbishops, who became rich by the salt mines located in the south of the city. In designing this beautiful Baroque city, architects were imported from Italy and other European countries. 

Austria is a Roman Catholic German-speaking country with a population of about 8 million. It is the center of the once large multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire with its imperial capital in Vienna. This empire stretched eastwards from present-day Austria through much of east-central and south-central Europe. It included the entire territories of modern day Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and portions of Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Poland and Italy. 

From the start of the 20th century, the political history of Austria has been closely linked to the misfortunes of modern German history, mainly the First and Second World Wars and their terrible aftermath. The modern republic of Austria came into being in 1918 as a result of its defeat in World War I. Following an annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938, Austria more or less functioned as a part of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Thus, a large proportion of Austria's population supported Hitler and Austria's incorporation into Germany. Austrian soldiers also fought in the Wehrmacht. The Allies heavily bombed Austrian cities. A treaty signed in 1955 ended the Allied and Soviet occupation, recognized Austria's independence, and forbade future unification with Germany. A constitutional law declared the country's "perpetual neutrality", a condition for Soviet military withdrawal, and thus saved Austria from Germany's fate of a divided nation. 

A prosperous country, Austria is one of the most popular summer and winter holiday destinations in Europe and has the tourist industry to match it.

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