Salzburg and the Sound of

Mining.Yes, Salzburg is perhaps most renowned as the location of the world-famous "The Sound of Music" film, but we decided to embark on an adventure inside its famous salt mines, for starters. This, after repeated pleas from locals on various websites to bypass the ever-popular "official" Sound of Music bus tours and go for something "more authentic" (instead of an American-made movie which was mostly filmed at a studio in California).

The Salt Mines ended up being quite a unique experience that we all enjoyed. First, we were given jumpsuits to put on over our clothes to protect us from the grime and the cold temperatures underground.

Then, we were mounted onto a little open-air train car which drove us underground inside a mountain to a depth of about 600 metres. It took several minutes of driving deeper and deeper and as we progressed, the walls got narrower and the tunnels darker. The photo below was taken somewhere in the middle of the journey - here, the roof was so low that you had to stay seated or else lose your head. At the end of the tracks, the walls were so narrow that you had to keep your arms and legs right against your body or risk losing them too.

Next we walked a further 150 metres in the cold, damp darkness to a little spot where our tour guide, Ingeborg (Matt thought her name was the coolest part of the tour), explained the mining operations that used to happen here and introduced us deeper into the mines via the Alpine Slides (pictured below).


The slides were very long and steep. The key was keeping your legs wrapped around the outside of the slide and leaning back just enough to catch some speed without terrifying the children too much. Matt and I each had to take a child on our lap. Amy was a good partner because she has enough weight to slow us down a bit. Emily, on the other hand, is so light that we got going pretty fast, caught air, and nearly launched ourselves into the mountain wall ahead!

Amy didn't care for the slides too much, she said they were "too wild." Emily thought they were great.

Once we were deep inside the mine there were sundry displays outlining the salt mining process as well as portions of the rock walls that you could lick. (?!) There were also a couple short films about the local aristocrats that owned and operated the mines and their various contributions to the city of Salzburg over the years (the films were in German with English subtitles).

Below is a very dark photo, but you can catch a glimpse of how low the 'ceiling' of the mine is. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you may also be able to see the large salt lake we floated across on a boat. Soaking the salt in solution was the most modernized way that salt was extracted from this 2,500-year-old mine. The earliest miners - dating back to 500 B.C. apparently just chipped salt right out of the rock, using it to preserve their meats.

From the mine, we drove to a park 'n' ride lot outside the city and hopped a bus right into downtown Salzburg. We were all pretty hungry by this time, so we ducked into the nearest restaurant that had menus with English translations. Us girls enjoyed some apfelstrudel for our dessert while Matt opted for the chocolatey sachertorte.

You can't visit Austria without eating strudel, right?

Then on to view the city itself... One of our first stops was this lovely church right downtown at the Residenzplatz. It is the church where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptized. You can see a photo of the actual baptismal font below (right):

We also visited Mozart's birthplace, a small apartment in downtown Salzburg. It was been furnished as a museum full of artifacts belonging to the Leopold Mozart family (W.A.'s father) as well as Wolfy himself. I particularly enjoyed the original handwritten manuscripts from several of his compositions as well as his childhood violin and harpsichord.

That's Mozart's pianoforte in the background.

More of Salzburg:

The High Street area of Salzburg is notable for its many intricate signs that portrude above each shop. Here you can see a few of them:

I particularly enjoyed this sign: the Schmuck-passage. Coincidentally, it's situated atop an over-priced jewelry shop.

Alas, in the end it we found it impossible not to see a sizeable amount of scenery from The Sound of Music. Some sites we recognized straight away, such as the Festival Hall (where the Von Trapp family performs before escaping from the Nazis):

Others, we had to go back to the cottage and review scenes from the film itself. We had a lot of "Hey, we were there!" as we watched the movie over again. The only place we didn't get to was the Abbey, which according to the behind-the-scenes segment on the DVD, was mostly a re-created set in California anyway.

So (sew) - a needle pulling thread!

Mirabell Gardens & Palace

Again, smooth travels for a full day, though we discovered afterwards that we were supposed to have purchased a permit to drive on the Austrain motorway. Oops. We also found it interesting that there was no form of border control between Germany and Austria; we nervously toted our passports all day for nothing!