"Die Hügel sind lebendig" means "The hills are alive" in German!
While my grandparents were here visiting Germany...
We took a road trip to Salzburg, Austria!
Salzburg actually means "Salt Palace" in German.
The fortress that you can see from anywhere in Salzburg (the castle thing on the top of the hill) was built using money from the sale of salt, which has been mined in this region for hundreds of years.
Salzburg is also famous as the home of the Von Trapp family and the Sound of Music story.
So we hiked up to the fortress and here are some buildings we saw along the way.
There was a look-out point half-way up.
We had to walk up a very steep hill right at the end to finally get to...
The fortress!
There are flowers growing out of the wall!
Here is Kieran on top of a bunch of cannon balls.
More flowers growing out of the wall...
And, of course, Kieran jumping in front of the fortress.
Here is a Salzburg coat of arms.
And a look out point from the top of the fortress...
gives you this view of the city below...
When we were done at the fortress, we took a funicular train back down to the bottom.
The next day we went on a "Sound of Music" bike tour to see some of the places where the movie was filmed.
We saw many amazing sites like...
Lederhosen ducks...
Dirndl ducks...
Some old church...
We stopped at the Cathedral
and the town square.
We had to "Climb Every Mountain" on our bikes to get to the Nonnberg Abbey.
Here is our bicycle guide, Claudio, taking a break before we move on.
And here is my mom, pretending she's the Mother Abbess at the Abbey, since she played that role in her high school musical.
Here's one of the buildings they used for the Von Trapp house. (They only show the back side of this house in the movie.) And of course....ducks.
Here's the other house. They only show the front side of this house. And what do you know...we had seven kids on the bike tour. I guess I'm Liesl, and that makes Kieran Marta.
"Poppies.....Poppies will put them to sleep...."
Oh, wait...wrong musical.
Next, we stopped at Hellbrunn Palace.
That's where the famous gazebo is. They don't let you dance inside of it any more, because some lady broke her leg.
Another stop was the cemetery where the Von Trapps hide from the Nazis.
In the daytime, it's actually quite beautiful.
There are flower beds planted on top of every gravestone.
As a bonus, we saw the house where Mozart was born.
And, of course, Mozart ducks. Because....why not?
The final stop on our tour was Mirabelle Gardens.
This gate (and steps leading down) is where the Von Trapp kids sing "Do Re Mi."
They walk all through the park singing...
Do...a deer, a female deer...
Re...a drop of golden sun...
Mi....a name I call myself...
Fa.....a long, long way to run...
So.....a needle pulling thread....
La....a note to follow So....
Ti....a Pegasus on a fountain....
Wait...what?
That will bring us back to...
The front of the Mirabelle Palace...
And the back side of this unfortunate statue.
Fountain!
We came back to the Mirabelle palace later that evening to enjoy a Mozart concert.
Because, why not?
Thank you, Salzburg!
On our way out of town, we thought we'd check out the source of all this money...
We visited the salt mines in Hallein, which is just a few miles outside of Salzburg.
First thing you had to do was to put on these funky protective outfits over your clothes.
And then you had to hop on this funky little train that took you into the mine.
Then you had to go on these funky little slides to get down to lower parts of the mine.
Then we had to get on this funky boat that took us over a briny lake in the middle of the mine.
Then we had to get on another one of these funky slides to get to the lowest part of the mine.
And what do you know....we even saw some miner ducks!
That's all from Salzburg!
