Salzburg
The Sound of Music is legendary, largely thanks to the beautiful filming locations it displayed to viewers around the world. Those iconic scenes were filmed largely in this beautiful town on the border of Austria and Germany, and let me tell you, movies don’t do this place justice.
We explored Salzburg on a day trip from Munich, which is really all you need for this small city, so this post will outline the itinerary we took to see the city in its entirety in about 7 hours.
After getting off the hour and a half train ride, we walked from the station about 20 minutes to the Mirabell Palace. This is one of the shooting locations for Mary Poppins, and its no wonder why. The grounds are stunning, as is the surrounding architecture. We did not enter the palace, instead we stayed around on the grounds which was more than satisfying enough.
From there, we walked through a small plaza which was where Mozart's home was. You can still walk in and see where the musician lived, but we personally did not want to pay $11.
We then crossed the Salzburg version of the locks of love bridge and into Old Town where we spent time strolling down the pedestrian shopping street called Getreidegasse.
We made our way to the Kollegienkirche, which was surprisingly one of the must subtly beautiful churches I have ever been in. It was empty for the majority of the time we were there, which added to the beauty of the church.
We then made it to the Salzburg Cathedral which was more grand but more stereotypical than Kollegienkirche (I can only copy and paste that name).
Behind the Salzburg Cathedral, we took the funicular up to the top of the mountain to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. Here, you can roam a beautiful old castle, learn about the city and country's history in the museum set inside the original building, and have a drink and pork overlooking the rolling hills at the Panorama Restaurant.
After all that, we made our way back to the train station with a pit stop at a pretzel stand to hold me over for the train ride back.