During my last full day in Munich, I decided to take an impromptu trip to Salzburg, Austria. I knew it was close by, highly recommended, and I really wanted to visit another country during my trip.
To American’s, Salzburg is known as the filming location for The Sound of Music. To the rest of the world, it is known as the birthplace of Mozart.
Having recently finished reading The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley, I was drawn to Salzburg so that I could take a Sound of Music Tour, just like they did in the book!
I checked the train schedule and booked a roundtrip first class ticket on WestBahn from Munich Hauptbahnhof to Salzburg. The Munich Hauptbanhof leaves a lot to be desired, but is centrally located and easy to navigate. It is far from the beauty of many European train stations.
I appreciate the privacy and luxury of first class train cabins, especially when traveling alone. I paid about €120 round-trip. The tickets included an assigned seat, water, and a small snack.
The journey from Munich to Salzburg by train takes a little over an hour, and the scenery was absolutely beautiful.
The original Sound of Music Tour runs twice per day and leaves only a few blocks away from the Salzburg train station. I booked it the day before through Viator for extra Rakuten/AMEX points. I paid $67 for my ticket.
My train into Salzburg arrived right on time at 11:20am. I walked out of the train station and headed to Old City Salzburg to explore, knowing that my tour wouldn’t visit this part of Salzburg.
Old City Salzburg is exactly how it sounds. Its a tiny old walkable city with narrow streets and old buildings. There is one main street for walking and a few alleys that lead to other close streets. There are lots of cafes, boutiques, jewelry stores, and a few gelato shops.
I wandered around aimlessly just to explore and found a delicious poppy seed pretzel at a vendor near Mozart’s birthplace.
After having a snack and eating gelato, I made my way over to the start of the Sound of Music Tour.
The tour lasted about five hours and covered a lot of sites from the movie including:
Mirabell Garden and Pegasus fountain, where Maria and the children danced in the movie.
Nonnberg Convent, where Maria was a novice.
Schloss Leopoldskron, the house where the von Trapp Family lived in the movie. The movie actually filmed at a few different residences depending on the shots they needed. This Schloss is now a luxury boutique hotel.
Hellbrunn Palace and the Gazebo where Baron von Trapp kissed Maria for the first time.
Church Mondsee, where Maria and the Baron got married in the movie. Actually located outside of Salzburg in the town of Mondsee because no churches in Salzburg would let the movie film there!
Mondsee is a beautiful little town in the Austrian lakes district with it’s own Lake Mondsee just a few minutes walk from the church.
I had a blast on the tour and learned a lot about the movie, the real life von Trapp family, and about Julie Andrews. I would highly recommend taking this tour if you are a fan of the movie and can visit Salzburg.
The other thing I realized on the tour is how absolutely beautiful the countryside and lakes region of Austria is. I would absolutely love to go back for a longer stay.
Mirabell Garden was our final destination on the tour, which is right outside of where the tour began. Thankfully it was close to the train station. I was able to make it onto the 6:30pm train instead of having to wait for the 8:30pm train back to Munich. I had accidentally purchased a non-changable fare so I had to pay a few extra Euro on this train since I hopped on the earlier one.
Of note, Germany recently instituted more border control so our train did have to stop near the border and border patrol came through the train to glance at passports.
Salzburg is a gorgeous city with beautiful surrounding countryside. I would love to go back again and stay there overnight. The global headquarters for Redbull are located outside of Salzburg and would be high on my list of places to visit on a return trip.