Part 45: Do, a dear August 27 2012

For all the English police reading this, I do know how to spell “doe.”  My misspelling is of course in reference to the song from “The Sound of Music,”  arguably the most well-known musical of all time.  It was filmed in Salzburg in 1964 and most tourists come to the city to tour the filming locations and my parents and I hopped on that bus.  Literally.

 

 

 

At 9 am we were off on the “Original Sound of Music Tour.”  I have no idea if it’s actually the original but I’ll just assume it is.   It leaves from a church just across the street from Mirabell Gardens.  Many scenes from Do, re, mi were filmed here.  Maria skipping under an ivy-covered archway, the children mimicking the poses of athlete statues and running around the fountain before the grand finale jumping up the steps were all filmed here. 

On the bus, our tour guide entertained us with stories from the filming, including that to keep Kym Karath (Gretl) happy, the crew started giving her a lot of chocolate cake.  As a result, she gained a lot of weight as a 5 year old causing Christopher Plummer (Captain Von Trap) to require a double to carry over the mountains at the end of the movie because according to him, Karath was “built like a tank.” 

Our first stop was Schloss Leopoldskron, which was used as the back of the Von Trap house.  It’s a privately owned building, so you have to look at it from across the lake (the lake Maria and the children overturned their boat on).  Then, we had a long-ish drive to the gazebo.  On the way, we heard about how Charmian Carr (Liesl) was asked to gain weight to make her look younger and she did so by eating something like 10 full schnitzels that kept being replaced for the dinner scene on Maria’s first night.  Yeah, 10 schnitzels would do it. 



Front of Von Trap House

 

Before reaching the gazebo, which had to be moved from Leopoldskron due to people trespassing onto the property and driving the owners crazy with their own renditions of “You are 16,” we drove by Schloss Frohnburg, which was used for the front of the Von Trap house.  Apparently, there’s a lot of movie magic going on in this film.  We couldn’t stop there because it is also privately owned.

The Gazebo is now in the park near Hellbrunn Palace.  It’s sort of like Dr. Who’s Tardis in that the inside in the movie is larger than the outside.  Additionally, Hellbrunn’s front terrace is also the back terrace of the Von Trap House.  There’s that movie magic again (and for anyone keeping track, that’s the third house used in the Von Trap home composite).

 

We drove by Nonberg Abbey, but didn’t stop.  However, later that day, my dad and I climbed up the hill to take a look around.  The view of the mountains from there is amazing but the chapel looks nothing like the one in the movie. 

 

From there, the hills were alive.  The first large mountain we passed was Untersberg, the mountain the Von Traps crossed into Switzerland.  If you actually cross this mountain from Salzbrug, you actually end up in Hitler’s back yard.  As one tour guide put it, Captain Von Trap was a submarine captain, so maybe he didn’t do well on land.  Or maybe it’s that movie magic thing again. 

 

We drove into the lakes district where the opening montage of Austrian scenery was filmed.  We also passed Sheep mountain with the cogwheel train that Maria and the children ride.  We ended up in Mondsee where the cathedral that hosted the wedding is located.  In the movie (and in real life) Maria and Captain Von Trap get married at the abbey, but since movie Maria had a gigantic train on her wedding dress, they needed a bigger church. 

Also filmed in Mondsee was the bicycle ride along the lake and the scene where the children are lounging in trees along the roadside. 

(Tangent:  In Mondsee I saw a store selling lederhosen and dirndls and the models were posed like something out of Victoria’s Secret.  Hey, traditional costumes are sexy too.)

After giving us time to explore Mondsee, we got on the bus back to Salzburg.  My family’s actual next stop was actually Hellbrunn Palace, but I’m going to skip ahead to more exciting Sound of Music sights that my dad and I visited later that day. 

After climbing up to visit the abbey, we came back down and walked under the arches near the cathedral which Maria also walks under on her way to start work for the Von Traps.  We also made sure to walk across the Mozart Bridge (an important component of Do-Re-Mi). 

 

On our first day in Salzburg we visited St. Peter’s Cemetery.  Parts of the scene where the Von Traps were hiding from the Nazis were filmed here (others were filmed on a California sound stage).  Also, the University Market that my dad and I inadvertently ended up in on our first day in Salzburg was used for a scene in Do-re-mi as well. 

We pretty much covered the entire movie.  Oh, and the tour guide on the bus made us sing.  Those songs really stick in your head.