The Hills are Alive.

Last week was a long weekend here and we decided on Friday and drove to Salzburg on Saturday. A friends family joined us for the first two days. Salzburg is beautiful! We have been to Vienna before but Salzburg is so different and so charming! We reached late afternoon and walked around the old town visiting the cathedrals. The salzburg cathedral is very impressive and it has the bronze font where Mozart was baptized, which I made Ashu touch! (thottu kumbtufy if you want to know! :) Then we bought tickets and went to visit the Hohensalzburg castle. Its on top of a hill and reminded me of Rock fort in Trichy! Wherever you go, it is there! The castle tour is quite interesting! The interior was grand and the view was amazing. 

The next day we took the Sound of Music Tour. I loved it! The Panaroma Tours pick you up right from your hotel and take you to Mirabell gardens and from there, the bus tour begins. Our guide, Naomi was fantastic! She played all the songs from the movie during the tour and most of us sang along! Ashu was quite shocked seeing her mother croon "I am sixteen..." with such intensity! There were lots of interesting information about the movie, actors, locations, etc... The first stop was at Leopoldskron Palace where the children went boating on the lake and fell down. Second stop was at Hellbrunn palace where one of the songs was shot and it also has the gazebo where "I am sixteen" was filmed! The third  stop is at Mondsee where Maria and the Captain got married. It was a beautiful place where we tried the customary Apfelstrudel! Yum! Then the tour takes you back to Mirabell gardens and we walked around on our own trying to sing Do Re Mi at the exact locations it was filmed! The tour made me all nostalgic and I was making evil eyes at Hd because this is a tour I should have totally gone with my sis and cousin A instead of the clueless husband and two kids! The tour took me back 20 or so years when the three of us paused the tape recorder after every word so as to memorize the sound of music songs and rewriting "You are sixteen" and singing it together with A for Sis's birthday! Good old days!

Our friends drove back to Zurich after the tour. We visited the Mozart museums and did a short river cruise and a pizza dinner before getting back to our hotel. The next day we drove to Berchtesgaden (in Germany) to visit the salt mine. All of us had to wear overalls and go on a train deep into the tunnels and it was quite scary! The tour was very interesting though. We had lunch at the restaurant outside the salt mine and drove to Obersalzburg to visit the Kehlsteinhaus. (Eagles Nest) Its a chalet built on top of a mountain peak and was given as a gift for Hitler's 50th birthday! The location of the chalet and the views from there should be seen to be believed! The chalet is a restaurant now. One has to park in Oberslazburg and take a bus to reach the restaurant. And climb a bit from there to go to the top. Spectacular! It was 4 pm by now and we drove back to Zurich. I drove the last 300 kms crossing Germany, Austria and entering Swiss. Delightful!

Salzburg was full of mozart and music! There were people playing violin at every street corner. Ashu told me that she wished she brought her violin! I wish too! The money collected could have at least paid for her museum ticket! :)