In Other Salzburg (and Munich) News

I should be sleeping because I have a big day of shopping at my favorite places tomorrow, but I'm all hopped up on caffeine and Tracy Anderson's workout, so I shall blog again.  Has anyone ever done Tracy Anderson's workout?  I'm wondering how all of those weird moves turn into Gwyneth Paltrow's body...

As if I hadn't blogged about our vacation enough, I have another installment for you, Salzburg minus the Sound of Music and Munich minus Dachau.  Both were completely fabulous and we wish we had just a little bit more time in both places.

Salzburg

Salzburg is the land o' Mozart, so our first stop was naturally Mozart's childhood home.

Mozart Gasthaus

Mozart's kitchen, 1750s style.

The first time I tried to take this picture I got a tap on the shoulder from a Japanese tour guide and a mean old look, so Casey snuck one with his phone :)

Mozart's hair!

Mozart's violin and me

Mozart's wallet

Pretty streets, my favorite thing about Europe.

After the museum, we hiked up to Hohensalzburg Castle and only have three pictures to show for it.

One.

Two.

Three.

We saw more castles on this trip than I've ever seen in my life.  I've never really considered myself a castle person, but it's fun to learn about how people lived hundreds of years ago.  This castle was built in 1077.  Shish.

Pretty Sound of Music gardens with the castle in the background.

This unassuming sign led us downstairs to a HUGE beirgarten.

Check out the size of these mugs!

Does anyone actually believe I drank all of this?  

No.

Casey in heaven!

One of my favorite dinners of trip.  Casey tried to order wheat beer and ordered wheat shit instead.  Our waitress thought it was hilarious, told all of her co-workers and started teaching us all the bad German words we could learn.  Good times.

One of my favorite selfies :)

And that pretty much sums up Salzburg.  Because most of our time was spent SoundofMusic-ing, Salzburg is one of the only cities we wished we had more time in.  I would love to go back to tour the salt mines, Hitler's Eagles Nest and, of course, more mountains.

Munich

If I'm being honest, I wasn't totally pumped about Munich.  I wanted to taste a pretzel and drink beer at the Hoffbrau House, and that was pretty much it, but Munich turned into one of my favorite places.

Looky what we found our first day - a market, my favorite!

This one was cute.  A juice, pretzel and cookie and I was happy for the rest of the day :)

Just hangin' out drawing people.

After the market, we headed over to the Englischer Garten to see some naked people.  That's right, naked people.  Our guide book said there are more naked people here than unnaked people.  It wasn't quite that extreme, but we did seem some nekkid folk in the nudist section of the park.  Awesomely, they were wrinkly old men.  All the young people were clothed.

 The rest of the park reminded me of our favorite park in Denver, Wash Park - people everywhere laying out and playing games, dogs, bikes, pretty trees, blue skies, fluffy white clouds, happiness.  We stayed here for a long while people-watching and soaking up the sun.

After a hard day of market-ing and park-ing, we went to the Hoffbrau House.

I made Casey do a jumpy picture and this is what he came up with.  I laughed so hard I cried.

Post-jump satisfaction.

The awesome band

So happeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I finished my first big beer EVER at Hoffbrau House.  I felt so proud!

Besides visiting Dachau, Mike's Bike Tour was the best thing we did in Munich.  We learned so many amazing things about Munich and WWII.  I came away from it completely impressed by the German people and their resilience.

Our guide was AMAZING.  12x amazinger than our Sound of Music guide.

This unassuming black box is one of my favorite things in Munich.  It's a memorial for The White Rose, a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany.  They were regular college kids like you and me (10 years ago...) who risked their lives and ultimately died to spread the news of concentration camps. Most Germans had no idea what was happening in the concentration camps, so spreading the news was crucial.  They were sentenced to death by guillotine, facing up - eek!  There's a movie about it on youtube called Sophie Scholl: The Final Days.  It's an awesome movie if you're interested in WWII.  

Sophie, considered one of the greatest German heroes of the 20th century.  I'm pretty sure she has more bravery in her eyelashes than I have in my whole being.

 Next stop, the Munich surfers!  This place was so cool and is apparently a world famous surfing destination.  Gerard Butler, Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson have surfed here.

Our tour guide met Jack Johnson a few weeks before we were there.

We weren't allowed to go into this building, but the eagle on the back wall used to have a swastika in its hands.  It was chipped away after the war and left behind a slightly darker swastika stain on the stone.  Creepy.

This window has two of the only swastikas left in Munich.

Munich played a huge role in Hitler's early popularity, so it was really interesting to be in the same places he was.  I'm fascinated by WWII, if you can't tell.

My absolute favorite thing I learned on the bike tour was about a string of bronze cobblestones in Stirker's Alley.

This was another thing we never would have noticed, just a subtle tribute to the brave people of Munich.  It was an ordinary alleyway behind a major street in Munich.  This is probably a weak attempt at explaining it, but Germans had to salute the Nazis every time they walked down the main street.  The Germans who opposed the war could only do one thing to show their opposition - walk down this alley instead.  The Nazis caught on and started questioning people in the alleyway. If they didn't have a legit reason to be there, they could be shot or sent to Dachau.  It's crazy to think something so small as walking down a different street could end someone's life.  Hearing these crazy stories and being in the same places as Hitler and the brave Germans who opposed him was surreal.  I am confident that I would have opposed the Nazi regime if I had lived back then, but I don't think I would have been brave enough to join The White Rose or risk my life to avoid a salute.

We left Munich in awe of the everyday German heroes we learned about, and if you're ever in Munich, I highly highly recommend this amazing bike tour.  It will be four of the best hours of your vacation.

The Hills Are Alive - EEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Twenty-seven years of anticipation and dreaming led up to this awesome day.  I can't adequately put into words how it felt to finally be in a place I have dreamed of since I was a pup.  When someone asks me where my dream vacation destination is, I always say Austria.  I often get the response, "Australia?"  and I say, "Nope, Austria so I can twirl in the Sound of Music mountains."  Casey kindly let me plan this vacation around my Sound of Music dreams and the seven year old in me came alive as we toured the places I dreamed of for so many years.  Remember my excitement when we visited the Roald Dahl Museum in December?  I felt that same excitement this day.  

Without further adieu, my second best day ever (behind marrying Casey, duh), tied with the Roald Dahl Museum.

Part 1: The Sound of Music bike tour.

Preparing for our tour, Red Bull in hand :)

Casey was so nice to be the photographer/videographer for my big day!

We had picture cards on our baskets with scenes from the movie... something Sound of Music experts like me obviously don't need :)

First stop: the sight of the Salzburg Music Festival where the kids were singing when they made their daring escape.

And here's me making my daring escape :)

This place was awesome.  They carved the entire thing out of the mountain - not using mountain rocks, carved it out of the mountain.  It was pretty amazing.

Flicking water like Maria when she sang, "I Have Confidence."

Fun fact: The studio didn't make it widely known that they were filming a movie in Salzburg, so when they put a Nazi flag on this building for a scene, the people of Salzburg freaked out (and rightfully so - it was only 20some years after WWII).  Some went home, packed up their things and left the country and some left the country immediately without even stopping at home.  Salzburg placed strict limitations on the studio after that.

The cemetery where they hid at the end of the movie.

Nonnberg Abbey

and the "real" Maria watering her garden!

Pretty abbey.  We weren't allowed to go in but standing on the outside was good enough.

Fun fact: Nonnberg Abbey got a bad reputation during the filming of The Sound of Music.  The extras dressed in nun costumes hiked up their skirts and smoked between takes, and for years people thought they were the real nuns.

"Eeeeeeeeeee!  I'm biking where Maria walked!"

The back of the Von Trapp house.  They used two houses in the movie, one for the front and one for the back.  This one was stunning.

Just hanging out in the trees where the children played.

The front of the house :)

The group.  The girl next to me in the bright blue shorts loved the movie as much as I did.  She started a sing along on the way home and that was my favorite part of the tour.

Dorks trying to pass the time between sights.

The gazebo, one of the things I wanted to see most on the tour.  I was pretty much in awe when I saw it, as you can see in this picture.  I just wanted to touch it and dance in it and sing, "I am 16 going on 17..."  Unfortunately, some mean old lady was in there singing, "I am 80 going on 81" and she tripped, broke her leg and sued the city of Salzburg.  They had to lock it up so nobody else got hurt.  Mean old lady ruined one of my dreams.

But don't fret!  I still got to do the awesome Liesl squeal outside the gazebo - "Weeeeeeeeeeee!"

Pit stop for delicious grapefruit beer - half grapefruit, half beer, pure deliciousness.

Hohensalzburg Castle and me

Sound of Music Bike Tour - dream come true.

Part 2: Untersberg Mountain, aka Maria's Mountain

This is the mountain where Maria supposedly sings in the opening scene and the one she refers to when she's talking to the Mother Abbess.

The mountain and the views were incredible.  Being up on this mountain made us realize (again) that we are happiest in Colorado.  Maria obviously wants us to move back to Colorado, too :)

Part 3: Twirling and Mirabell Gardens

This is the part of Salzburg that I've always dreamed of.  I wanted to go on the bike tour and up the mountain, but twirling like Maria in a big open field was my biggest dream.  We have about 473 pictures of me twirling, but I won't bore you with all of that.  Here's my favorite one.

In my dreams, I always had the perfect twirling dress on, but sometimes it's not easy to find what you want in Dubai.  I had to settle for this long, untwirly skirt.  With or without the twirly dress, the happiness level is still the same.

Elation!

Now on to the gardens.

Mirabell Gardens were in the big "Do a Deer" scene.  They sing on the mountain and then tour the city in their curtain play clothes.  Casey and I actually walked through this garden our first night in Salzburg and didn't even realize it was the Sound of Music garden.  We obviously had to go back to take pictures.

Tree tunnel.

Can you find me?

Yes I did march around the fountain like an overenthusiastic fan.  It would have been cooler if I had seven kids marching behind me.

And, finally, the stairs where they ended the song.

And a cute lady in her traditional dress.  

Fun fact: These stairs are the most photographed in Europe according to the tour guide.

After the Roald Dahl Museum and The Sound of Music tour, I'm all out of childhood travel dreams.  Shout out to Casey for letting me plan a trip to Sound of Music land and enthusiastically photographing every second.  Thanks, love!