I arrived in Salzburg yesterday evening to a great hostel. Very clean, big rooms and bathroom etc. They also serve breakfast and dinner here, both for very reasonable prices, and have a small bar too. I have met 3 people from Seattle in this hostel, which is funny since I haven’t ran into many from home during my travels. I had planned on doing the official Sound of Music tour while here, as the movie and it’s scenery are what brought me to Salzburg. However, after reading reviews and hearing bad things from others – I decided to do it my own way and pace. I most wanted to enjoy the scenery and wasn’t thrilled with the idea of 5 minutes at each place.
The tour would have been 33Euro. I realized that most of the sites they take you to (where parts of movie were filmed) were within Salzburg and easy to get to on foot or bike. But the famous hills, lakes, and mountains, are just outside of Salzburg. I paid 11Euro for a round trip bus ticket to the lakes district here (7 lakes total). I got off 45 minutes later in the small lake town of St. Gilgen which is on the most beautiful lake St. Wolfgangsee. St. Gilgen was a cute little town and I picked this one as they offered a gondola up to the mountains (which was a pricey 20 Euro, but I wouldn’t have even been able to go there on the ‘official tour’).
The mountain is called Zwolferhorn. The gondola takes you near the top where there are numerous hikes to choose from (1.5 hours to 2 days). I took the only hike available if you do not have hiking boots – it was 1.5-2 hours and took you through the hills and mountains to several panoramic peaks which each gave you a view of 4 of the 7 lakes in the area. St. Wolfgangsee was the largest of those we could see and was also the prettiest with a beautiful blue/green glowing color. The hike certainly allowed for a lot of ‘Julie Andrews’ type moments. I didn’t actually spin, but it was such fun!!
This is probably a good time to apologize for the redundancy in the pictures for this post, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to do my best to capture the experience for other SofM lovers at home! Sadly, there was a bit of a haze that the camera picked up, preventing you from seeing the amazing views I did with my own eyes. I also took a few videos!! The hike took me through some lightly wooded areas and apparently the hills are also alive with cows – who I had a few fun encounters with.
There are two restaurants up top and I treated myself to a mid-day apple streusel that was actually not that unhealthy. The crust was very thin and not a lot of butter – the inside seemed to just be finely cut apples and cinnamon – it was tasty! When heading back to the gondola, I had the pleasure of watching (and filming one) several paragliders taking off. What an amazing and crazy way to see this beautiful countryside!! The gondola ride and mountain experience was money well spent, it was exactly what I was hoping for from Salzburg.
On the way back to Salzburg, I was able to hop off the bus for a couple hours and swim in one of the other lakes. The town and lake are both called Fuschl. This town was smaller and almost all hotels. It had two lovely (but rocky) beaches. The water was the perfect cold temperature with very cold water coming from the bottom (perhaps spring fed as I didn’t see any rivers or streams). I was so glad I had brought my bathingsuit, it was a great way to end a wonderful and hot day and give my muscles a break! Tomorrow I plan on doing a self-guided tour of the official SofM landmarks on bike!
Awesome!!!