Mike isn't feeling too great this morning and is not looking forward to the bus ride. However we get on and try to get some sleep as it drives us through to Salzburg. We are pleased that we are on time for an early arrival of 12noon (should be 12:30pm) because we want to do the Sound of Music tour this afternoon at 2pm. We listen to the songs on our iPods to get us in the mood. The tour picks us up at our hostel and we board the bus. By the time everyone is on, it is packed and with a much older crowd to what we are used to. It's an old enough crowd that when the tour guide tells us where we may know one of the original stage show performers from, he says "the younger people on the bus might know her from the show Dallas". To put it in perspective, Shona's mum was in and out of hospital to give birth to Shona between Dallas episodes... we felt REALLY young when he said that! The tour took in some
of the most important scenes of the movie, we saw the back of the house (including the very impressive man made lake behind it), the front of the house which is a different building in reality, the glass house from "I am 16 going on 17" and the church where Maria and the Captain got married. Between locations we also had a chance to take in some of the Austrian scen
ery and have our first taste of authentic apple strudel. Mike had already been told that the tour is a must for fans of the movie -but that it isn't the best tour because you don't see as much as you hope to see. Being an optimist -Shona thought that this might not be the case and that the tour might still blow her out of the water. In this case the slightly pessimistic Mike had a better experience, as his expectations were met while Shona left slightly disappointed. The good thing was that the music was playing for almost all of the second half of the trip -shame that no one on the bus had the guts to pipe up and sing out loud, because everyone would presumably have joined in! The most interesting thing that we learnt was that during the scene where the children and Maria fall out of the boat, the crew had planned all but one important detail. They hadn't taken into account that the girl playing Gretel couldn't swim! She sank like a rock
but luckily wasn't hurt! We also happened to drive past the massive headquarters of Red Bull -the Austrian energy drink giant. After the tour had ended, we walked through the gardens and found another scene that the tour guide had recommended we check out (the unicorns and the fountain that the children danced around) then headed back to the hostel to catch up on emails etc. We spent an hour trying to connect to wifi at our hostel and did not succeed. That's part of the fun of traveling to have completely differing qualities of facilities at each hostel we stay at! For those of you that have been checking on our web page most days -we apologise for the periods of AWOL, but hope that you understand that WIFI is not always a guarantee at a hostel.
of the most important scenes of the movie, we saw the back of the house (including the very impressive man made lake behind it), the front of the house which is a different building in reality, the glass house from "I am 16 going on 17" and the church where Maria and the Captain got married. Between locations we also had a chance to take in some of the Austrian scen
ery and have our first taste of authentic apple strudel. Mike had already been told that the tour is a must for fans of the movie -but that it isn't the best tour because you don't see as much as you hope to see. Being an optimist -Shona thought that this might not be the case and that the tour might still blow her out of the water. In this case the slightly pessimistic Mike had a better experience, as his expectations were met while Shona left slightly disappointed. The good thing was that the music was playing for almost all of the second half of the trip -shame that no one on the bus had the guts to pipe up and sing out loud, because everyone would presumably have joined in! The most interesting thing that we learnt was that during the scene where the children and Maria fall out of the boat, the crew had planned all but one important detail. They hadn't taken into account that the girl playing Gretel couldn't swim! She sank like a rock 
but luckily wasn't hurt! We also happened to drive past the massive headquarters of Red Bull -the Austrian energy drink giant. After the tour had ended, we walked through the gardens and found another scene that the tour guide had recommended we check out (the unicorns and the fountain that the children danced around) then headed back to the hostel to catch up on emails etc. We spent an hour trying to connect to wifi at our hostel and did not succeed. That's part of the fun of traveling to have completely differing qualities of facilities at each hostel we stay at! For those of you that have been checking on our web page most days -we apologise for the periods of AWOL, but hope that you understand that WIFI is not always a guarantee at a hostel.
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lol - K has been waiting to hear about the SoM tour - shame there is disappointingly little to hear!
ReplyDeleteBut must have been great to be where SoM was filmed. Had been thinking of you there! Pity about no singing on the bus.
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