The Sound of Music (and other Austrian culture)

Salzburg is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve visited! It is quite simply amazing. It’s got a medieval castle, great cafés and is surrounded by the Alps. What more could you ask? Say, for example, locations used in the Sound of Music? Oh yeh!

Now, if you care enough to read my blog (Hi Mum) you probably know I have a bit of a nerdy appreciation for ‘The Sound’. I blame my sister. She watched it over and over again during my formative years. What a weirdo.

Penny, however, had only seen The Sound once. ONCE! We were looking online for a place to stay and suddenly I heard an exclamation coming from her – “We can stay in the actual von Trapp house”. Yes that’s right – THE ACTUAL VON TRAPP HOUSE!!! It’s now a quite nice guest house, and really not too expensive. It wasn’t used in the film. But it was used by Himmler as a holiday house. Swings and roundabouts. Here we are approaching it. I may be a little excited. 

Ok, so it’s a pretty big house. But it’s not the palace that the movie depicts. It also doesn’t have huge grounds, though it’s entirely possible the grounds maybe have been subdivided since the Trapps lived there. Certainly no rotunda I could see, and it’s also not set on a lake! Here I am looking all pensive and stuff at the back door.

And this is the drawing room, where apparently they used to sing!

And here's penny doing her best Gretl impersonation on the stairs!

So I dragged Penny around Salzburg to see the sites used in the movie. So she says. I think she actually quite enjoyed it. I had looked online and found a few places used. Now, if you think about it, there’s really only a few songs filmed outside. I Have Confidence, when Maria first leaves the convent to go to the Trapps, and Do Re Mi. Oh yeh and the opening title song, but that could be any green Alpine hill! The rest are pretty much filmed on sound stages.

So let’s go through them. Here’s the convent gate, which was used in the film at the start of I Have Confidence, when the kids come to visit Maria and when the Nazis search for them. 

Also this is the convent yard, parts of which you can see in that song.

This is in one of the main squares of Salzburg, just down the hill from the convent, and I’m reenacting (so realistic!) a bit of action from it.

And then Maria arrives and freaks out, and I’m pretty sure this is the gate they use! I think the front exterior house is right nearby but we didn’t realise at the time.

And then there’s the park where large part of Do Re Mi were filmed. There are two fountains and I couldn’t remember which one was used, but had a feeling it was this one. As it turns out they’re both used!
This is the Mozart bridge – he was born in Salzburg. And there’s a brief shot of Maria and the kids running across it gleefully.

The famous I Am 16 Going on 17 rotunda was on a soundstage for the movie, but apparently this is the genuine thing! It’s in a park a bit out of town, which was also very pretty!

I hadn’t actually seen the movie for years before going, so we missed a few things. But that night we watched it in the von Trapps drawing room. That was fun in itself, but we realised that a whole bunch of things we had seen that day were also in the movie! The Mozart bridge was one of those. Also in the Do Re Mi park there were these funny little statues that Penny thought were quite amusing. It turns out there’s like a two second shot of them running past it during that song. There was a lot of “We were there!” action.

Okay, I know it’s not very cool, but we had a good time.

We only stayed one night in Salzburg which I think was a mistake. It’s just so pretty that I could easily spend a few days just wandering around drinking hot chocolate. Also the Alps are right there, so there’d be plenty of walking to do. Here's one angle of the big ole' castle that the town is kind of built around.

From there we moseyed onto Vienna. It’s a very pretty city, and you very much get the sense of a grand old imperial capital. Which it is. 

This is one of the main squares, and apparently the balcony is where Hitler spoke when Germany annexed Austria.

We of course went to see the Danube. It was really more of a brown, than a blue. 

Penny and I decided we needed to have one hot chocolate a day. Sometimes this was too. We went to a series of increasingly grand cafés in search of the best. Penny also has no real idea how much pastry a person needs to consume in one day, and insisted that we have at least a few. I felt this was a bit ludicrous, but acquiesced in the interests of peace. Everything in Austria comes with whipped cream. It was a bit overwhelming by the end.

In return for me suffering pastries in silence, I demanded that we visit the grave of Franz Schubert, the famous composer. She made outrageous claims that I’m not actually related to him. He’s buried between Beethoven, Brahms and Strauss – aka the big league. My Uncle Russ said he heard Schubert was “a raving homosexual”, though he never believed it. Either way, he apparently died of syphilis. Poor form, Uncle Franz.

 

On the last day we were wandering around and came across a bunch of people in what you might term ‘Austrian national dress’. They were colour coordinated, had a marching band and dudes with rifles in a very, very poor formation firing them into the air. Then after a while another group of people with a marching band in a different colour marched into the square – and then another one!

I approached the prettiest girl I could find to ask what was going on. She said it was people from Tirol, which is around Innsbruck, who come here every year for some sort of festival, and the different groups were all from different sub-regions. She had a little flagon of schnapps, and it was her job to offer a small glass to the mayor of Vienna. She had some left over and offered it to us! So marching bands, pretty girls in dirndls and free schnapps – not bad, not bad at all. 

Oktoberfest and freeloading off friends in Innsbruck

I flew into Munich from Oslo to meet my friend Thomas for Oktoberfest. Thomas and Tracey are friends from Katherine who have recently moved to Innsbruck in Austria for six months. They have a four-year-old girl, Emmi, and a one-year-old son, Tully.

They’d only been in Innsbruck for less than a week when Thomas nicked off to meet me and have a bit of a boozy night out. In fact, I’m pretty sure he is the first person to ever be waiting for me at the gate when I’ve been picked up from an airport. So much man love.

We had a hotel room to share and had a comparatively quiet night, keeping our powder dry for the big one.

Now how to describe Oktoberfest? The actual site is maybe 20 minutes walk from the middle of Munich and kind of feels like a really drunken country show. That’s probably a tautology. I could just say it feels like a country show. There are rides and dodgy fried food vendors everywhere, and also huge tents, they actually look more like sheds that are put up by major breweries.

We arrive there about 11am on Saturday. Thomas and Tracey had tried to get into a tent when they were in Munich a week before, but they had no luck. They fill up super quickly, so we thought we were there early. We discovered that every tent had been full since 9am and it was really unlikely we were going to be let in! Bugger. It was also raining, which made the idea of waiting outside in the hope we might somehow get in even less appealing. We did find one place that served us a beer outside the tent in the rain, but after that it was time for a plan B.

We went into a beer hall in the middle of Munich owned by Hofbräuhaus. Here’s a fun fact – it’s apparently where Hitler gave one of his first public speeches. It was super packed and we still had to wait to get in, but we did. It was kind of crazy. It’s just hundreds of tables holding about 10 people in this huge cavernous room. We found a table that had a spot for two to squeeze into with a bunch of Swedish blokes, and ordered a beer.

As you can see, they don’t really serve the beer by the schooner. Each stein is one litre. It feels like a lot of beer to drink. 

There was also an oompa band playing in the middle of the room, and everynow and then they played this 16 bar song that is apparently a German “cheers”. I think it’s a slightly classier version of “Here’s to Thomas, he’s true blue”. Everyone starts singing along and swaying their steins arm in arm. The first time it happened I had absolutely no idea what was going on!

All that beer naturally needs a light, healthy lunch to go with it. I had pork knuckle, which was delicious. But oh my goodness, so much food! All it was was this meat, with the best crackling I’ve ever had, and a potato dumpling. It was absolutely amazing, but on top of an ever-increasing tally of beer steins it was kind of hard to eat!

There was some excellent people watching to be had, including the old dude behind us who spewed all over his table and then passed out in it. That was a sight!

Eventually we went for a bit of a walk and they were just opening up the upstairs level. So of course we sat and had another couple of beers and tried to make new friends.

Eventually we decided to head back to Oktoberfest and try out luck getting into a tent. It took us a while of standing around but eventually we managed to work out way in. Now inside the tents is crazy. It’s even bigger than the beer hall and there are just tables everywhere. We got in at about 9pm so it was pretty messy and kind of smelt like a lot of spilt beer. There was a more pop band playing on a stage about five metres high and just people drinking beer and talking everywhere. We couldn’t really sit down and it was really hard to move around but we still managed to procure beer.

 

And yes, we were starting to get a little drunk. I think this photo sums it up pretty well.

The whole thing wraps about a bit after midnight, but there were plenty of bars and clubs open in Munich. We did eventually make it back to our hotel room, somehow.

The next day neither Thomas nor I were feeling particularly fresh. We had to check out though and drive to Innsbruck, where I was hitting them up for a free bed for a few nights! We took the scenic route back, which was about two hours, and the road slowly became more and more alpine. The colours of the leaves changing were particularly amazing. As an Australian I never really understood why people got so excited about this – now I understand.

My friend Penny was also hitting up Thomas and Tracey for a free bed, and was there with Tracey and the kids when we arrived. I think Thomas and I were both in need of an early night!

Thomas and Tracey had only been in their for a few days when Penny and I showed up to freeload. They had a whole heap of things to do so I spent my first morning there babysitting the kids with Penny. Well, she didn’t do much. Luckily there were no tears, and much to our relief, no poo.

Thomas speaks fluent German, so he’s very handy to travel with! Tracey, however, does not. So the next day she went off to start an intensive language course, while Thomas, Penny, Emmi, Tully and I went to have some fun. Yes, I do feel bad about that. There’s a gondola kind of thing to the top of a nearby mountain. Actually it’s this weird train thing, then two gondolas! I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, because it was super cloudy that day and I thought the view would not be good. But Innsbruck is in a valley, and the clouds, as it turns out, were just hanging out there. The view was really amazing, it sort of felt like something from the land before time.

We also had lunch at a cafe right up there, which was perfect as it also had a kids playground for, um, Emmi. And Penny. And me. As you can see though Penny doesn't play nicely with others. She also sucks at the game of pushing the other person off the balance-beam first. 

Oh yeh, this is Emmi. She’s cool. Her parents gave her a camera – pink, because she’s yet to get onto the whole smashing the patriarchy thing (I also had a long chat with her about how Barbie isn't a realistic representation of femininity) – to document her six months in Austria. Thomas borrowed it to bring to Oktoberfest because it’s waterproof and shockproof. That was a good decision, but we got a few looks for our pink camera!

 

I think the next day involved finishing a jigsaw puzzle, and Penny and I starting our at least one Austrian hot chocolate a day habit. After that we decided to head to Salzburg and Vienna, but I’m going to split up my Austrian story. More soon, I promise! 

And thanks to Thomas for giving me his photos of Oktoberfest, and I also pinched some of his photos from the top of the mountain. 

Hiking in the Arctic and a few Norwegian fjords

The hike I told you about was amazing! I didn’t really have much of an idea where to go. I arrived at the hut at the start of a long trail and asked for ideas. They suggested doing bit of the Kungsleden – the King’s trail. There are huts spaced out that you can stay in, all I needed to rent was a sleeping bag sheet, and you can buy basic food and use the stoves there – simple.

So I loaded up my little day pack, which is kinda uncomfortable but not too bad, and headed for the hills. The first thing I saw was a sign warning of wild bears, wolves and lynxes. I don’t know whether to be glad or disappointed I didn’t see any!

The scenery was pretty stunning. Most of it wasn’t at that high a altitude, but it is within the arctic circle so the vegetation was reasonably short.  There was snow on the mountains and the odd glacier was around, but I was mainly walking through valleys.

 

I arrived at the start of the walk at midday, and by the time I had some lunch and got a little organised it was 2.30pm before I started out on the 18 kilometre first day leg. So the whole thing was a little slapped together in a hurry. It occurred to me somewhere on day two that I had kind of just started an 88-kilometre hike without more than half an hours planning. I mean, obviously I live to tell the tale, but when I did the Overland Track in Tasmania I thought about it, trained for it and packed for it for weeks (and I still forgot my topographic map!).

After six months of drinking beer and eating cheese I’m not very fit, but I managed to do okay on this hike. The longest day was 25 kilometres, but it was the 23-kilometre day straight after that really hurt. And I was hiking by myself, which was mainly okay, but sometimes hard to motivate myself. The middle three days I had a really strong and annoying headwind too, which kind of took a bit of fun out of it. And on one of the long days there was lots of walking over this kind of thing, which really slowed me down.

 

One day I was walking around with my Gortex hood on my head down to keep the wind out when I saw a bit of movement in my peripheral vision. I looked up and there were two male reindeer fighting maybe five metres in front of me! They kind of got spooked when they realised I was there, but I don’t know much about reindeer and their antlers looked very big! They seemed more frightened of me but it was a bit of a shock!

 

The best bit though was that most of the huts on the trail, and all of the ones I stayed at, had a wood-fired sauna! Now I’ve never really been into saunas before, but I am now totally sold. The huts are built on a river or lake, and the saunas are right next to the water. This for instance is where the first hut I stayed at was.

 

So you go and steam in the sauna for a while, then run out and jump in the ice-cold water. And I mean ice-cold. I started out very tentatively, but as I became more adventurous I realised that it’s actually a pretty nice sensation. I know it’s weird, but that’s how I psyched myself up for it. Like eating a super-hot curry, it’s just a sensation that will pass. And you know there’s a steaming hot sauna to run back into. But when you get out of the icey water it feels like you’ve rubbed deep heat into every muscle of your body. And the next day you more or less feel fine muscle wise. It really is amazing. By the last night I was in the sauna and running outside to the river for more than an hour – totally hooked. And the weirdest thing is after getting out of the river how comfortable you feel walking around naked in four or five degree weather. I guess everything’s relative.

And there's a water heater in the sauna too, so you can soap up and rinse off at the end which is wonderful after walking all day. It's all just a little bit of luxury in the middle of the Arctic wilderness. Thoroughly pleasant. 

Anyway, here are some more beautiful photos.

 

One of the most fun things was the suspension bridges. There were usually one or two a day, and sometimes really quite high! Not quite sure this quite captures the precariousness above the raging torrent.

The last hut was kind of a big operation compared to the tiny little huts elsewhere on the trail. It’s still in the middle of nowhere and you have to walk 14 kilometres to the nearest road, but it has a fancy restaurant and I treated myself  to a set three-course menu. I wish I’d taken photos! The entrée was herring prepared in five ways: pickled  in a mustard sauce, in a tomato sauce, battered and fried, and in a mayonnaise sauce with smoked salmon. The main was thing kind of huge rissole thingy made out of moose meat with mashed potato, and the dessert was based on local berries that the chef’s apprentice is sent out every morning to pick from the hillside. It was a pretty bloody amazing meal, and a few glasses of very expensive red wine went very well with it.

So after hiking out to this tiny little village where you can catch a bus, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to get a connecting bus back to the starting point where I had left my big pack that day. So I had to stay a night in this town called Kiruna, which I think might be Sweden’s equivalent of Mount Isa. It’s super remote, newly built and lacks a bit of charm. But I eventually got back to where I started, picked up my stuff and caught a bus over the border into Norway. 

I switched buses in Narvik - the biggest town in the area and continued on to the Lofoten Islands. Here’s a map to show you where they are.

View Larger Map

 I’ve been reading a lot of crappy thriller novels lately because you can usually get them for free on your Kindle. So I’d been reading one about a serial killer on this really long bus trip, which ended with me leaving the bus in the pouring rain with lightening and walking down an unlit street which I wasn’t sure was the right one. It was kind of freaky.

I stayed for a few days in Ballstad, which is this tiny little fishing village. As it turns out nothing happens in Norway on Sundays, including buses running. So I ended up having to stay another day, but that wasn’t too much of a hassle. It was kind of a weird hostel – they had a bunch of old fishing huts, and as it was the off season I had one all to myself! So I spent one rainy day on the couch with a blanket next to the heater reading more free thriller novels! But there was a mountain right behind the village to climb!

 

When Norway woke up and the buses were running again I moved villages to Å. That’s all it’s called. I was never able to figure out how it’s pronounced, but I like to think it was like this:

 This was also a kinda weird little hostel, but I can’t complain because when I checked in the guy gave me my keys, my sheets, a massive hunk of fish and a traditional recipe to cook it! It’s basically poached in salty, vinegary water and it is pretty good. And free fish – you can’t complain about that!

I stayed there for two nights and kind of just wandered between villages, because my legs couldn’t handle much more mountain climbing. But it is very pretty and nice to stop and have a nice (expensive) lunch.

 

From here I spent a lot of time travelling – I caught a ferry to Bodø, stayed a night, caught a train to Trondheim, stayed a night, then a very long bus to Bergen. It was a shame to do it overnight, as when the sun broke the scenery was amazing. Alas, I couldn’t take photos, but it was some of the most picturesque valleys I’ve seen thus far. Bodø and Trondheim are nice enough cities, but there didn’t seem to be that much to keep me there longer than a night.

Bergen is Norway’s second largest city and famous for its fjords. I went on a boat cruise with a few other people from the hostel I was staying in, and it was very pretty without being jaw dropping. I suspect if you had time and a car you could find some truly amazing scenery, but I was running short on both.

 

I also hiked up one of the many mountains around Bergen, it was a very nice view. 

I broke up the train trip to Oslo by staying overnight in smaller towns Voss and Geilo. These were kind of pretty – and again with the main tourist season being over I had either a room or a little cabin to myself! This is the lake in Voss – very pretty. 

And in Geilo there’s a ski lift which starts from the train station!

I spent two nights in Oslo and mainly did museum kind of things. I went to the Edvard Munch museum and saw many of his famous works, including one version of The Scream. I went to the Nobel Peace Prize museum, which was pretty interesting too. Oslo is built of a fjord, but it doesn’t have the dramatic mountains coming straight out of the water like the north and west of the country. 

I also had an amazing dinner in Oslo where I tried deer for the first time – it was delicious!

Scandinavia was painfully expensive at times, but so beautiful that I think it was worth it. I was umming and ahing about it, but I figured now was the time while I still had money in the savings account, and before it got too cold. And I certainly don’t regret it!

All this feels like a while ago though, because I’ve since flown to Munich for Oktoberfest, stayed with friends from Katherine in Australia and dragged another mate around Salzberg to see sights from The Sounds of Music. It’s been amazing, and as soon as I can get photos from my friends I’ll put up a post about it.