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| The Von Traap Family home from the Sound of Music movie |
Emma was itching to get on the SOM tour so within minutes of checking in we had purchased tickets and were sitting in the bar/dining room watching the SOM movie whilst we waited for the tour bus to pick us up. The SOM tour is massively popular and takes you by comfortable tour bus around Salzburg and the surrounding region showing you locations where the movie was shot. Our tour guide was Austrian but had obviously spent a lot of time in the United States (probably L.A. or San Francisco). He was as gay as they come and would have got on quite nicely with King Ludwig II and his swans. He made the four hour tour quite enjoyable with his theatrical descriptions mixed with local history and jokes about the bus driver. The tour stopped off at various homes, churches and lakes visible during the Sound of Music. During extended driving periods when the guide did not have much to say the silence on the bus was filled with the SOM soundtrack. As an introduction to Salzburg it was very worthwhile and a lot like the Big Bus in London.
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| The Sound of Music fashion parade... |
For a non-SOM fan like myself the tour felt a little like a science fiction convention, interesting, but not something you would like to be seen at by choice. To SOM fans however the tour was like a trip to Mecca and more than a few 'Dohs' and tears were shed by its participants. There was a rather freaky American family all dressed in matching SOM sweatshirts who had recently been involved in a SOM musical 'with descendants of the actual Von Traap family'. To complete their experience they finished off the tour with a microphone enhanced rendition of Edelweiss and a weird Cuckoo song (complete with actions). For those on the tour who were deaf the songs probably sounded great but for me it was almost the last straw that forced me off the bus early.
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| A movie clip from inside the Sound of Music bus (Click to view movie) |
Needless to say Emma and Jess loved the tour. To them the SOM is to me what Star Wars is but without all the interesting things like spaceships and light-sabers (although SOM with those things would be kind of interesting). Emma had a smile on her face for the rest of the day and ever since that time I cannot stop humming 'Doh a Deer' to myself.
The next day: Climbing the Untersberg...
More photographs from Salzburg...