Vienna + Salzburg, Austria

We arrived in Vienna on the 24th of September and stayed for 3 nights at Do Step Inn Hostel. Vienna is a great city for shopping and architecture. We saw many beautiful cathedrals, parks and did a lot of retail window shopping.

One of Vienna's Main Streets

Take-away Hot Gog Stands are found on every corner

Inside one of the Cathedrals

One night we headed to the Travel Shack, an Australian bar in Vienna, hoping to do a pub crawl. Due to it being low season they no longer do the crawls so we had a couple of drinks and then headed to Flex Night Club. Wednesday night is "Indie" night, there were a lot of young people there and the music wasn't great so we had a couple of drinks and headed home.

Overall we had a fun time exploring Vienna, especially going to Figmuller for a giant pork schnitzel!

The Famous Figmuller Pork Schnitzel

Then we travelled South to Salzburg, the famous home of the 1965's movie, The Sound Of Music. Salzburg is a beautiful town. Unfortunately the sun didn't come out for us once on our 3 night stay but we still had the pleasure of wondering around Salzburg's windy streets and walking along the river.

The Salzach River that runs through the centre of Salzburg

On our last day I did the Sound Of Music Tour, which consists of a tour bus that drives you around to the main scenes where the movie was filmed. We went to one of the mansions where the house scenes were filmed, drove past the other mansion where the front of the house and garden scenes were filmed (the people that own the property have banned busses driving down their lane way but you can bike ride down it). We saw the lane way where they ride their bicycles and climb the trees. The gazebo that "I am sixteen..." was filmed - The Gazebo has been removed from it's original position which was in the backyard of one of the mansions because too many people trespassed on to the mansions property just to get a photo in front of it. It is now located in a public park. We also drove to Mondsee, where the church is located that Maria got married in.

One of Mansion's that the Von Trapp's house was filmed at - also the river that the children and Maria fell in

The "I am Sixteen..." Gazebo

The laneway to the other Von Trapp's Mansion - Which the children cycled up and climbed trees in

The Other Mansion that we weren't allowed to visit

The Church Maria got married in

The Fountain the children and Maria marched around 

The Garden Maria and the Children ran through

We didn't go to the nunnery where Maria served time but you can go there in your own time, it is located in the centre of Salzburg and is where the real nunnery that Maria Von Trapp stayed. The Sound Of Music is actually based on a true story of a man with 5 children who's wife passed away from disease. Less than a year later, Mr Von Trapp went to the nunnery for help. This is where he found Maria who looked after the children and eventually became his wife. They really were singers and travelled around Europe preforming for many people. During World War 2 the family were requested to play for Hitler but they refused. Prior to this the eldest Von Trapp boy was a doctor and was requested to work for Hilter but he also refused. The family wanted to avoid conflict with the Nazi's so they relocated to America but were denied access due to lack of money. They travelled back to Western Europe where they toured around singing until they made enough money to move to America. Eventually they were allowed to live in America and here they still live today in Vermont, running a Holiday Lodge.

Michael at the Augstiner Brewery

That night we went for dinner at the Augustiner Brewery in preparation for Oktoberfest which was our next destination.

I really liked Salzburg and wish I could see it again on a summer's day as I think it would be a lot prettier!