Salzburg: The Sound of Music Tour

The children got to experience the marvels of the European half-board this morning: cheese and deli meat for breakfast? Mom!! Oh, but, there was also cake and sugary cereal.

Weeks ago, we booked a place on the Sound of Music tour, which takes one to movie locations in and around Salzburg.  Dennis and I took the tour together the last time we were here, and we remembered it being a really fun way to see the city, as well as the hills and lakes region.

Our tour bus didn't leave until 9:30. As we found out yesterday, Salzburg is, essentially, a tourist town, so those businesses still running in the winter certainly didn't bother opening before 10:00.  With the weather alternating among rain, snow, and hail, the playground didn't seem like a great option, so, desperate for entertainment, I decided to introduce the children to that pleasure well-known to children across northeastern Ohio: the dirty parking-lot snow pile.

Oh mom. You're so embarrassing.

Singing along to the piped
soundtrack. 

Given how deserted the city was, we wondered whether we'd be having a private tour, but the bus was full of unselfconscious movie fans. And, among these, we were eagerly perched at the very front of the bus, Ella already chirping songs.  (Strangely, her favorites aren't the ones sung by the children, but rather Maria's "I Have Confidence" and the nuns' "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria." I've heard each several dozen times during and since the tour.)

Since Ella was already a fan of the movie, she wasn't disappointed in the least: she was happy to look out the window and she followed what the guide was saying and generally drank it all in.  Alex and Joey, of course, were a little less interested, but they were both really happy. Joey played contentedly with a little monkey toy that he's been clinging to and sleeping with for several days. And Alex made fast friends with the man who sat behind him on the bus, a local to Salzburg who was there as an assistant to a professional videographer and who, therefore, just about shared my sons' level of interest in Maria Von Trapp.

Facing Schloß Leopoldskron.  This rococo palace was built
in 1736 and served as exterior for the Von Trapp family home.

One way to solve a problem like Maria.

Alex is fastidious about keeping his pants clean.  Seriously
considering getting him lederhosen.

Ella, outside a very famous glass gazebo.

Up in the hills region: it was too cloudy to see the mountains,
but the kids had a great time in the snow.

The Mondsee church: the setting for Maria's wedding.

We had an hour for lunch in Mondsee, and Ella had her first
Italian-style pizza. Yum!

We were in a bit of trouble after the tour: it ended at 2:00, and our train for Trebesing didn't leave until after 6:00.  We passed a little bit of time in the Mirabell Gardens, 

The Pegasus fountain in Mirabell Gardens

and then we spent a little more walking around the city, thinking it might tire out the kids, but that backfired. Joey was the only one who got tired: he fell asleep in my arms and simultaneously gained 15 pounds, as sleeping toddlers always do. 

We had to retrieve all of our bags from the hotel at 4:00, so Dennis and Ella managed to lug those while I carried Joey and Alex helpfully managed all four of his stuffed kitties.

Train stations here don't really have interiors or any sort of heating, so we had to find a warm place for the kids. Unfortunately for our GI tracts, Burger King seemed like the best option: shockingly, they were deserted and so had plenty of room for us and our bags.

Uno is an excellent stepping stone to Spades.

So here's the thing about European trains that I didn't really register when I was a backpacking teen.  There are an awful lot of damn kids on those trains. But we were really polite and well-behaved when we were damn kids. No, seriously, we were. Our mommas raised us right. My friends and I played quiet games of spades across six countries.

But kids these days…

There were a dozen drunken sixteen-year-olds piled on one another's laps in the seats directly behind us.  Alex was exhausted and frazzled, and I tried to console him with a movie, but it was too loud to hear a thing.  He finally snapped and yelled what every other person on that train was thinking: "BE QUIET." Ella whispered to him "Oh Alex, I'm sorry I can't control anyone else on the train, but I'll be as still and quiet for you as I can." Cold comfort. The teens got off at a train station with a very large youth hostel right in front, making me wonder why anyone in the world would think it would be a good idea to own or operate a youth hostel.  

Yes, I'm old. Get off my lawn!

Boarding and exiting trains is tricky: we had exactly sixty seconds to get all our bags and children off the train.  Sleepy Alex just refused to be rushed, so Dennis had to pick him up and carry him out, causing howls of protest.  But all of the pain and indignity of travel was erased as our ride showed up in a cartoon covered van and took us to the SmileyHotel. 

Seriously, you would not believe this place.  Twice one our way to the hotel, the front desk called our ride to make absolutely certain we didn't want them to make us some dinner, or at least a little snack, before we got there. When we arrived, the kids caught a glimpse of an indoor kid habitual (á la Chuck-e-Cheese) and they grabbed hands and started doing a little dance of joy. Our suite here is enormous, with two extra bedrooms for the kids, and everything parents might need for little ones (two kinds of toddler toilet seats, a crib, changing table, fridge and microwave, baby monitors that work all the way to the lobby…)  Our kids, delirious (with fatigue and joy) got a quick tour of the hotel from the staff, but I'm afraid, for the rest of you, that will need to wait until tomorrow.

It's been a long day.