54. Jet-Setting to Salzburg for a Set-Jetting Experience of the Sound of Music

This week, I’m whisking you away on a remarkable set jetting experience I had last summer in Salzburg, Austria exploring the very locations that brought to life one of my all-time favorite movies, The Sound of Music! I’ll share with you exactly how I found the perfect tour, the sights I was able to visit, and the behind-the-scenes stories from my cinematic pilgrimage. Tune in and get inspired to plan your very own set jetting experience on your next memory-makin' trip.

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The Original Sound of Music Bus Tour
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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.

Transcript

Hello, jetsetters. Welcome to episode 54 of jetsetting with me. I am so excited to share this latest episode with you. And if you'd like it, I would love for you to click the check mark to follow the podcast so the episodes will show up automatically in your feed. Please listen to it, share it, and take just a few minutes. If you like it, to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps me to know that my friend, Janet Hi, Janet. Isn't the only one out there listening and helps other people to find it.

Last week, I defined for you what set jetting is. And if you haven't listened to that episode, please go back and listen to it before listening to this one. You don't have to, but it will make a lot more sense about this episode's content. This week, I'm taking you with me on a set jetting experience. When I had this past summer with my mom and a close travel friend of ours in Austria, Salzburg to be exact. And when I say the city, Salzburg, what do you think of? If you guessed one of my all time favorite movies, The Sound of Music, then you guessed right. Last week, I said the first thing to do for a set jetting adventure is to decide where you want to go. Check.

I knew the minute I was headed to Austria that the trip would not be complete without a visit to Salzburg. More accurately, I didn't really just need to visit Salzburg. I needed to do The Sound of Music tour. That was my detailed itinerary for the day, a daylong side trip following our incredible river cruise. Deciding where to go, check. Detailed itinerary, check. Now the challenging part, putting it all together. Luckily, I do this for a living, so a cursory search on Viator wasn't going to cut it for me.

I have to pause here for a minute to tell you why this was so important to me. The first time I saw the movie was with my grandmother. May she rest in peace. In an old screen movie palace where there were thick red curtains that they actually pulled to open at this height of the opening theme, and they closed them for intermission. I was slightly younger than Brigitte. I was in between Gretel and Brigitte. But Brigitte is the daughter who's reading a book when we first see her and are meeting the children, and I loved to read. All I wanted in life was to be her with her cute braids and live in that fabulous castle of the Von Trapp family home, which was really just a place where they filmed the scene, but still, I didn't know that.

Brigitte is also the smartass of the children, so it was probably in my blood that she would be the child I would identify with the most. Fun fact, when I was just a little bit older than her age in the movie, I made a callback audition to play her in the stage play. Callback audition, It didn't go anywhere, but still, I got to meet the actors who played Weasel, which was a highlight. Being 16 going on 17 seemed a world away at this time. Those were the days. Right? My brother-in-law says youth is wasted on the young, and I am a true example of that. I always always wanted to be older than I am until now. I can't count how many times I've seen the movies since that first time from beginning to end, intermission included.

I mean, you gotta get a popcorn break in there. I can sing every song, and I remember most of the lines too. This tour was not just a tour for me. It was a pilgrimage I had waited almost entire life for. The standard tour was just not gonna be right for me. In fact, friends who had taken the same river cruise and the standard sound of music tour the year before had pooh poohed their tour experience so much that my mom almost wasn't going to go with me. Seriously, can you believe that? She wasn't gonna come. And that meant the first thing I needed to do was find out why they didn't enjoy their tour and what I needed to do differently.

This proved to be the key component in my planning. My Rolodex came in handy, and through my research, I found out the most famous tour, the one which will come up first if you don't use an advisor and you decide to DIY this trip, is a large bus tour. The photos from the tour look fabulous, and the bus is decorated, and there are whisper ears for everyone so that you can hear the tour. But whisper ears were a red flag to me. This meant it would be a large tour, probably between 20 40 people. And despite having over 4,000 positive reviews, 4.5 stars out of 5 on Vaydor, Reading the description, I could tell that the stops were gonna be drive bys, and most of the time was actually free time to shop in the small city where the wedding scene was filmed right outside of Salzburg. But those reviews came in handy. I actually went to the site of the company that provided that big tour and found out that they offer a private tour as well.

And although much pricier, but, hey, I am a jetsetter. It was the holy grail of Sound of Music tours. And when was I ever gonna get back there or do it again? I mean, it was a pilgrimage. So the investment that I made made total sense to me and was worth every single USD penny. We chose the half day, the 4 hour tour, which was actually 2 hours longer than the big bus tour. We started in the Mirabel Platz, which is called the Mirabel, and it's in Central Salzburg. And this is where much of the famous Do Re Mi song is filmed, including the fountain, the hedges, and the famous stairs at the climax of the scene. In fact, there is a gold star right where Julie Andrews stands at the end, and you can get a photo.

In fact, there's one of me standing on that exact spot. While all of that was very exciting, because we were on a private tour, we had more time to spend at the site, and we learned the history of it, which it is a UNESCO heritage site, and I'm always in favor of visiting those. The palace on the site of the Mirabel, called the Mirabel Palace, was built around 1606, and it was built on the shore of a river north of the medieval city walls. It was built at the behest of an archbishop, and he actually suffered from gout, and he had had a stroke, And so he wanted to evade the narrow streets of the city, and he erected this palace for him and his mistress who was promptly thrown out after he died by his heirs. The Marlborough Hall is a former banquet hall of these archbishops, and it's generally regarded as one of the most beautiful wedding halls in the world, which you can now use. But in former times, the likes of Mozart and his children, Wolfgang, made music here. And in 1944, Gretel Braun, who was the sister of Hitler's mistress, Eva, was actually married there, and Hitler and Himmler were in attendance. So it's got some sad history as well as some very pleasant history.

Now next, we got into our personal Mercedes Benz fully air conditioned, and the Do Re Mi song was already queued up to go. So as we drove to our next location, we were hearing the music in the background and stories of the filming from our tour guide. We passed by the hotels where the children and their families stayed for the 6 weeks during the on location filming, where Christopher Plummer stayed, as well as the new mother, Julie Andrews, and her daughter stayed. We passed by the fountain where Maria splashes water during her song, I have confidence, which I often sing to myself when I'm feeling imposter syndrome scrolling through Instagram. We were able to get out of the car to view the Abby, which stood in for the Numburg Abbey. Actually, it is Numburg Abbey. And here our guide discussed with us the differences between the movie and the truth. The von Trapp family never actually went to the Abbey when they were taking flight.

They did, however, get married there. And the abbey is the oldest one in existence in the German speaking countries. It's now home to a very small group of nuns between 46 who actively recruit for others to join their order. And the nuns are a singing order and they sing Gregorian quarrels every single morning at 6:45, which you can hear if you are awake. You can also visit the Abbey. If the door is open, that is a sign that you can come in, of course, respecting the sanctity of the location. And if the door is closed, that's the sign for do not disturb. Next up was the back of the house where the garden scenes were filmed, which is now also a famous movie location and hotel, and the famous river scene.

Then we were told the story of little Kym who played Gretel, who couldn't swim at the time of the filming. And Julie Andrews was supposed to fall forward to get Kym before Kym went under. But Julie ended up toppling backwards, leaving the rescue to Liesl, AKA Sharmin Carr, who we see carrying Kym out of the river. And Kym is at kymkarath, and that's spelled kymkarath, and I'll link this in the show notes on Instagram. Her account is a must follow for fans of the movie, and the cute little actress who played Gretel has grown up to be a beautiful woman. And we're actually really close in age in real life. She's just 2 years older than me. Now no tour would be complete without the famous gazebo of one of the most memorable scenes of the film.

You are 16 going on 17. Are you singing it in your head right now? Well, me too, but I'm not gonna sing it for you because I wouldn't do that to you. This is where my guide told me, as a part of my OJT research, how the bus tour is different. We were able to actually stroll into the park and see what is an active park now for residents of Salzburg. The gardens around the Helbrunn Palace, where's the big bus tour basically drives directly into a backdoor entrance to the gazebo, and it's a very quick on and off stop. Now the trees surrounding the palace, which we got to walk through, are where the scene of the children climbing trees was filmed, and there are statues called funny people throughout the park. You might remember seeing the children tap the head of one of them during do re mi. And there are famous trick fountains, which are like the jumping water fountains at Epcot's journey into imagination.

Only these were built in 16/15. And finally, after this lead up and walk through this active park, you get to the famous gazebo. Now you can no longer go in it. The doors are welded shut because they actually fell off from overuse. And the gazebo is dedicated to both the people of Salzburg from the movie crew and producer and director Robert Wise. And the actress, Charmaine Carr, it's dedicated to her who played Liesel, and she passed away, may she rest in peace, at the age of 73 in 2016 from complications of dementia. In filming that final scene, she actually slipped through a window of the gazebo and had to continue filming in terrible pain. It was the actual final scene of the movie, and you would never know that she endured this pain while filming it when you're watching the scene.

I'm so lucky that before she passed away, I did get a signed copy of her book, Forever Liesl, which is a great read for my fellow fans about the filming of the movie from her perspective. Since she was over 21, she didn't have to go to school, and she actually hung out with Julie Andrews and Julie's daughter, quite a brand new baby, quite a bit. And she tells all these stories about the filming. It's really, really good. And next up, the church where the wedding scene was filmed, and this is the very first scene that took place. It's actually at a basilica in Mondesi. I hope I'm saying that right. And it's just outside of Salzburg.

And at the time of the filming in Monstie, director Robert Wise was facing opposition from city leaders in Salzburg who were worried about him staging scenes with swastika banners. And when you remember the onslaught taking place in the city center, there are Nazi banners hanging. They did relent, however, after he threatened instead to include the real old newsreel footage, which features the banners. So the city relented. Meanwhile, the basilica in Manzi, where the altar is, has buried skeletons. And if you look carefully and go back and watch the movie, you can actually see them. You can also see the organ, which is real, and at the time of the filming was belting out how do you solve a problem like Maria. Now you'll also remember that you see the nuns sending her off.

So that was actually filmed at the Abbey, but the wedding scene, actually, she enters, and when she walks down the aisle, that is what was filmed at the Saint Michael Basilica. And the many, many visitors today keep that church in business and working through their entrance fee and the souvenir shop. The end of the tour ended with a drive by at the famous opening scene location, which is truly as beautiful as it looks. And last week, I encourage you to immerse yourself in the location of your set jetting trip. And I had a beautiful edelweiss dress all picked out to go, but the weather wouldn't cooperate. So I settled for what is now my sweatshirt that I love and I bought on the fly, and you can see it in the photos. It looks just like something that you would wear to go on a sound of music tour. But my big error was not watching the film before I went on the tour.

And although it was really fun to watch it upon my return, I wish I had had a recent viewing so the scenes would have been more recent in my mind and better able to recall. We definitely interacted with the locals. In fact, our tour guide was one of them, and we got lots of 1 on one time with him in the car and at all the sites, plus our driver from Vienna to Salzburg and back. Although, if I were doing it again, I would do the train between Vienna and Salzburg for an even more local feel. I've done a reel of some of the photos from this very exciting day on Salzburg, which I posted today as well. Check it out and let me know in the comments if you would do a set jetting experience on a future memory making trip. Okay, jetsetters. Happy set jetting.