The Hills Are Alive..........

with the sound of music.......aaahhh ahhh aaa ahhh. Doe a deer a female deer...ray a drop of golden sun. High on a hill was a lonely goat herd...lady odel lady odel lay hee hoo. Edelweiss, Edelweiss bless my homeland forever.

Ok, I'll stop before you start to think I'm a little obsessed with the Sound of Music. Every since I found we were moving to Europe in 2006 there were two things on my list of things to see: Paris and Salzburg, Austria where The Sound of Music was filmed. (How naive of Europe was I to only want to see these two things!) If your a regular blog reader you know I've been to Paris too many times to count so only Austria was left.

We finally made it there two weekends ago. My cousin Shanell joined us for our road trip too! When I say road trip....I mean serious road trip. We were in the car for a total of 32 hours over our 6 day holiday.

Here's a recap in pictures!

Our first stop was Dachau concentration camp just north of Munich, Germany. It was very, very sad to step foot into the gas chambers that so many people were killed in. What's more sad is the fact that they thought they were being taken to shower. Instead of water coming out, gas fumes quickly filled the room. Terribly sad.

The entrance to the Dachau concentration camp.

The gas chamber

The room after the gas chamber

Munich was our next stop. Scott was there about 10 years ago and the only place he didn't go to was the famed Hofbrauhaus. (www.hofbraeuhaus.de/en/index_en.html) He's waited over 10 years to visit this place so we stopped there first. We just missed the German oompa band but Alexis provided great entertainment for us. We all indulged in a German Beer and a pretzel. Yum. The Hofbrauhaus is behind us.



Cheers!

After stuffing ourselves we headed into the city center to watch a large cuckoo clock chime but, we missed it by 15 minutes. It sings on the hour and we got there at 15 after. We probably should have waited around for the next hour but we didn't. Munich was a surprisingly nice city. Very Gothic yet baroque. Very old (not Brugge old, but old) I'd definitely go back and spend more time there. I rarely say that about places but this whole trip I'd do over if we had more time to spend at each stop. We were go, go, go the entire time. It was a big site seeing trip.

The large cuckoo clock in the city center.

The city center

We stayed in picturesque Garmisch at the military lodge. It was on the military base and was only for military. This was the highlight of my trip. It was like a 4 star rustic mountain lodge. AND everything was in U.S. dollars AND they had 3 restaurants that only served American food AND they had a spa AND they had real American Coke & Diet Coke (yes, they taste different in Europe) AND everyone there was American (which means they spoke English!) You will never understand how nice it is to have these little perks unless you've stayed outside of the U.S for an extended period of time.

On a side note, Shanell watched Alexis for us one night so Scott and I could go have a drink down stairs at the sports bar. We went to the sports bar and ordered our drinks and then started taking in our American surroundings. Apparently quite some time had past because we both looked at each other and laughed. We were so enthralled with the conversations going on around us we forgot to talk. In Belgium (or Europe in general for that matter) we never understand conversations that go on around us.

But, back to the road trip:

Next up was Salzburg....my Sound of Music city. Scott previously warned me that a lot of the movie was filmed in Hollywood but I didn't listen to him and preceded to ignore him and sing more songs from the movie. (Before we left I downloaded the soundtrack to my ipod so I could force everyone in the car to sing along on the 2 hour trip there. Luckily, everyone particpated without me having to twist any arms.) Well, he was right...I think the 3/4ths of the movie was filmed in Hollywood. We did see quite a few things from the movie which I was excited about. But sadly, there were no hills that I could sing and dance on. All the hills I saw had tons of trees on them...there were no trees on the hills in the movie. I'm sure the rolling hills were somewhere but we just didn't see any.

The gazebo that they sang "I am sixteen going on seventeen" in.

They keep the gazabo locked so I was unable to hop the benches and sing like in the movie.

This is the lake and the back of the house used for Sound of Music. You'll remember the lake because that's where they all fell out of the boat when they were waving at their father. Oddly enough, the front of the house that was used for the movie is not the front of this house. They only used the back. Hollywood I tell ya.

This is the cemetary where they hid behind the graves to hide until Rolf found them.

And Mirabelle Gardens where Maria taught the kids to sing.


Salzburg the city was really nice. Quite different than I imagined but surprisingly beautiful. I think Austria ranks as one of my favorite countries. (No laughing Shannon! In Vienna....) The people are very nice, the scenery is beautiful, and the food is good.

The Salzburg Castle that sits above the city.

I had no clue that a river separated Salzburg. Silly me.

Shanell and the Sound of Music cow.

Did you know Mozart was born in Salzburg? This is his house...right smack in the city center.

The next day we headed off to Berteschgaden. Hitler had a summer home called Eagles Nest there and there was one of the largest salt mines in this city. Shanell and I took the salt mine tour while Scott had some quality Alexis time. We didn't go to the Eagles Nest but we saw pictures of it. Good enough for me.

They made us wear glow in the dark outfits in order to take the tour. It was dark down in the salt mine!

On the way back to Garmisch we stopped by the little town of Ramsau. It had a little stream going through the center and a little church on the hill. It made for great pictures.

Hope everyone enjoyed the pictures of our trip through the Bavaria region of Germany and Salzburg, Austria.