The Hills Are Alive

Surprise, surprise, I have another trip to post about! This time it was just a "quick" day trip up to Salzburg, Austria, where the Sound of Music was filmed! We booked this trip through MWR (the base) and hopped on a bus at 3am Saturday morning. Yes, 3 AM..... Luckily we all had 2 seats to ourselves so we slept pretty much the entire way there. We arrive around 10am and spent the morning exploring the cute old town area, then went on the Sound of Music tour and got to see many of the sites from the movie! After we had a quick dinner then hopped right back on the bus. Arrived back in Heidelberg at 2am and went right back to sleep!

Here are some of the highlights from the trip:

It was a surprise to us, and maybe to you too, that the man who created Red Bull lives in Salzburg! We thought this was pretty cool!

Today, (Jan. 27) is Mozart's birthday! Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace, and this yellow building was his house! It is now a museum. (We did not make it inside though)

At first we thought this was a castle, but it was actually a fortress. If we had more time in the city we would have made a trip up to visit it and see the views, but it was just too far to make it up in time. But you've gotta love that blue sky right???

Statue of Mozart. Happy Birthday!

Beautiful Cathedral

Look! Sun! It's been a while since we've seen it, and even though it was FREEZING, it was nice to at least see the sun again. :) 

Another beautiful church both on the inside and out

I've noticed that every church we've visited so far has been absolutely GORGEOUS, and then we discover a creepy aspect to it... like this. Downstairs in the church past priests were buried which if that wasn't creepy enough, then these shadow characters definitely made it creepy!

There was a long line of horse drawn carriage rides for people to take around the city. We did not take one, however I could not pass up the photo opp. and had to get a picture of these two love birds :)

There was a cute Saturday street market going on, so I had to stop for a pastry. It was like a cinnamon twist sort of thing... it was sure tasty!

Here was one of the big stops on the Sound of Music tour we took. The building in the background was used for the scenes in the backyard of the Von Trapp mansion. It is not the same building used for filming the inside or front though. And in front of it is the lake (now frozen) where they fell off the boat into!

The famous Gazebo. The public is no longer allowed to go inside of it because a 92 year old lady decided to jump from bench to bench inside which resulted in her falling and getting hurt. Hmmm wonder where she got that idea?? ;)

GORGEOUS view. This point had nothing to do with the Sound of Music, but our tour guide took us up here and of course we took up the chance for a photo. If only pictures did even a little bit of justice for how beautiful this view really was. And the snow (although VERY cold) added an extra touch!

And last but not least, this is the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp got married!