Salzburg for a Day

June 12, 2026

Salzburg for a Day - On My Own

On Tuesday, June 9, the students went for a tour of the Audi car factory. I was not interested in this at all, so I decided to do a day trip to Salzburg. It was about a 2 hour train ride each way. I went with a tour group that organized the details from Munich. While I was by myself, I was within the tour group and it was all in English. I made new friends and had one of the BEST days of my life.

The sight of the mountains on the train ride was refreshing after being in cities for so long.

The Sound of Music

I have always loved this movie. It was one of the few movies I was allowed to watch as a child and that our family watched together. I visited Salzburg in 2000 and have some memories, but was excited to go back and rediscover it. Our tour guide and my research beforehand told me that the people of Salzburg don’t really care about the movie - most have never seen it. While there are official “Sound of Music” tours, there is very little in the town that refers to it. There were only a few souvenir items in the shops - and rarely more than one thing per shop.

After my trip I rewatched the movie with David that evening. I realized that several filming locations were not familiar to me because while they are in the movie, they must have been taken out for the sake of time when it was broadcast on TV in the 80s. Watching the entire movie I saw many things I hadn’t noticed before.

Mirabell Palace Gardens

Of course, I remembered this one! The Mirabell Palace is on the left and has an interesting story itself. The archduke built this for his mistress, with whom he had something like 12 children. He obviously wasn’t ashamed of everyone knowing this information. He even named the palace after her. Later they changed the name. The fountains on the side of this building and also in front are filming locations for the famous “Do Re Mi” song.

Movie scene in Mirabell gardens

Another famous scene from Mirabell gardens

Movie scene with Maria and the castle in the background.

Movie scene in Mirabell gardens

I mistakenly thought this was the leafy, wooded corridor the children run through. Oh well.

This isn’t the greatest photo, but the entire tour group waited and laughed as I tried to re-enact the movie scene.

Town Center

Two photos (top and bottom) from the movie of the town center with the Nazi flag and soldiers.

Me in the same place!!!

Here is the fountain with horses in the middle of that main square.

Julie Andrew’s splashes the horse during the song “I Have Confidence”.

I tried to splash the horse, but the water level was low, and my arms were too short!

Cemetery

This is another “Sound of Music” site, but it is a bit deceiving. In the movie, the Von Trapp family hides in a cemetery - presumably at the convent. There may be a cemetery at the convent, but the scene was filmed at a set in Los Angeles. However, the tour guide books claim this cemetery is the inspiration for the set in that scene. I could be wrong, but it is a neat cemetery. I also learned that the plots are not owned, they are rented by families. Rent is due every ten years. If families don’t pay, then the graves are “evicted”. 😳

Each grave was elaborately decorated with flowers and other things. I think it would be taxing to do this for family members who died generations ago. It was impressive and lovely.

Nonnberg Abbey

The real Maria Von Trapp did indeed start out at this very abbey to become a nun. The movie claims that several scenes were filmed here, but there were also several “abbey scenes” that were filmed on set in Los Angeles. The abbey is a little ways from the fortress, on the same mountain. I walked there and took a look. Since it is still an operating abbey, I didn’t feel like I should go snooping around very much. Plus, it wasn’t like there were signs about “Sound of Music scene filmed here!”. lol. But the abbey was lovely and I did peek inside.

When we watched the movie that night, I noticed this scene from the beginning of the movie that I had never seen before. It clearly is the same sanctuary I was in that day!

More pretty gravesites in the abbey courtyard.

Horse Fountain

I was a bit confused by this one on the map. I thought the “Horse Fountain” was the one in the center of the square that I mentioned earlier. However, there is also this fountain with a horse statue in it as well. There is a very brief scene in the movie of them walking past it. It is another scene I didn’t remember until I rewatched it.

Movie scene

My photo of horse fountain

Messezentrum (Site of the Folk Festival)

Salzburg does indeed have an annual folk festival like in the musical. It is held at this venue, which is not open to the public. There are tours in German available if you want to go inside, but I didn’t do that. I did take some photos of the outside. From my observations in person and the movie, it looks like the stage is cut out of rock - from the side of the mountain. Our guide told us that the city did indeed cut rock from the mountain to build parts of the city. You can see it several places.

I’m not certain, but I think this is the covered drive where they all get into their escape car after the festival.

The yellow building is the “theater”. You can kind of see the rock behind it that I think makes the back wall of the theater.

On another weird note, there was a large delivery truck that drove up to these poles as if it was going to go down the street towards me as I was walking. I thought, “well, it can’t get through there, so I don’t have to move over.” To my surprise, the middle post suddenly lowered into the ground and the truck drove on through! Then I noticed that several places around the town have posts with lights on it like that. I think that is how they monitor the traffic - keeping cars and other passing vehicles out of pedestrian only streets, while allowing for a way for delivery trucks to still have access.

Hotel Where Christopher Plummer and Children Stayed

Our guide told us that the yellow building was the hotel where Christopher Plummer and the children actors stayed. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer did not like each other very much or get along well during the filming of the movie and she stayed at a different hotel about a block away.

Marionettes

The marionette show in the movie is regionally accurate. Marionettes are a cultural thing here. This sign was the only reference to the Sound of Music besides small things in gift shops. Every year, this theater puts on a marionette show of “The Sound of Music”.

When I went up to see the fortress at the top of the hill, I stumbled across this little marionette museum with lots of fun displays.

Sound of Music puppets

Mozart

While Salzburg does not advertise its connection to The Sound of Music very much, they certainly do advertise their connection to Mozart! The composer was born here and spent his youth in this town. Although he later came to not like it, his family and sister lived here much of their lives.

This is the house where Mozart was born. There is a museum in the apartments above about his life. I would like to go see that if I ever get back to Salzburg.

This is a piece of art that is supposed to be a golden Mozart ball with Mozart as a boy standing on top looking out over it. Mozart balls are famous little chocolate balls with a little marzipan in the middle. They are wrapped in gold foil with a picture of Mozart on it. You can find them all over Germany and Austria, in almost every grocery store and shop.

This was fascinating to me. This was the doorbell system. Each of those wires connects to a different window of a different apartment in the building. Of course, they are disconnected now so they don’t work.

Can you follow the wires up to the different windows?

Fortress Hohensalzburg - The “Castle”

The most distinctive sight in Salzburg is the fortress high on the hill behind it. It looks most impressive and is in many shots of Salzburg from The Sound of Music.

I took the tram up to the fortress.

The inside of the tram is very steep

Here is a video of our ride up!

I’m not usually excited about the views from up top, but these were worth it!

Can you see the big golden ball in about the middle of the photo? That is the Mozart sculpture I mentioned earlier.

Mountains in the distance

I took this selfie to prove I went to the very top of the fortress to see the view.

You could take a tour around the fortress and it was well done with interesting lookouts.

These horns play at certain times over the city - or used to.

The view going down

One fun story I learned about the Salzburg fortress involved a bull. At one point, another army had the city under siege. All the people fled to the fortress and were safe, but surrounded by the enemy. They were running out of food and had only one bull left. One of the soldiers came up with the idea to paint the bull a different color every day and take it out for a walk where the enemy could see it. They wanted to trick the enemy into thinking they had lots of bulls left to eat and could last a long time. It worked! They enemy gave up and left. Thus, the people of Salzburg gained the nickname “bull washers” because they had to wash the paint off the bull each night in order to repaint it the next day.

Around Town - The Salzach River

Locks are only allowed on one bridge in Salzburg.

Our tour guide joked that if you put a lock on with a key and throw the key in the river, your love will last forever. But if you are less sure, then you get a combination lock. I thought he was kidding, but there were many combination locks on the bridge.

View of old Salzburg from the bridge

The Sacher Hotel

The Sacher Hotel in Vienna has another location here in Salzburg. This is actually the hotel where Julie Andrews stayed during filming. Of course, there is a little shop on the ground floor where you can buy a piece of Sacher Torte.

The Getreidegasse - Main Shopping Street

Salzburg has always been a wealthy city. Of course, it gets its name from the salt trade that went through this area for many years. Salt was very valuable - more than gold. Salt was used to preserve food. There were many salt springs and salt mines near Salzburg. One quote I read in a museum read “Humankind can live without gold, yet not without salt.” Salzburg is located on a major trading route between Germany and the north and Italy - which was the gateway to trading all over the world.

The main shopping and tourist street in Salzburg is Getreidegasse. This historic street was the center of all trade. Our tour guide told us that the real estate on this street has been in the same families for hundreds of years. The buildings are all very, very old and very valuable. Mozart’s birthplace is on this street. It is also known for the wrought iron signs that hung above the shops - midevil style to help the illiterate public know what was for sale in each store. I found this street to be beyond charming and LOVED just strolling up and down it - taking photos of all the interesting signs. Our tour guide also pointed out that along with the old signs, there are also lots of new ones, with modern popular business and chain stores. The contrast of old and new is side by side in Salzburg.

See the pancakes piled on the plate?

This was for a knife shop.

This was for an umbrella store - probably my favorite sign.

Example of a modern business with the old fashioned style sign.

Owl

Fashion in Salzburg

I’m always fascinated by dirndls and other dresses on display.

This dress was bizarre - with bubble-type things on the top. But I really liked it.

Around Town

Many buildings in town had dates on them. The oldest restaurant in Europe is here.

See the dates on the gates? Those are the years that the cathedral was rebuilt (usually after being destroyed in some sort of military conflict) and thus rededicated. The latest date was because of damage from WWII.

The Salzburg Cathedral

This place claims to be the first coffee shop in Austria, and perhaps all of Europe.

This is the chocolate shop that claims it invented the Mozart ball candy. Apparently it has been a court battle for many years because while the owner of this shop claims to have invented it, he did not patent it. At any rate, I was told if you go here, you can pay a lot more money for some very well made Mozart balls with certificates of authenticity.

This is supposedly the smallest house in Europe. The story goes that there was a young man who wanted to marry a certain girl. When he went to ask permission from her father, the father told him he had to own a house in order to marry his daughter. The man had no money, so he build this tiny house illegally in an alleyway. He did not get the girl…lol. Today it is a tiny jewelry store.

Red Bull World

Our tour guide told us that the man who owns Red Bull is from Salzburg. Thus, there is a store here that sells merchandise for Red Bull and the many various sporting teams that it owns.