Sound of Music Tour

I took that stupid tour almost 30 years ago on the advice of my sister in law, a Sound Of Music addict.
I had never seen the movie before, and I swore not to see it after that tour. As of today I still haven’t. Still today I remind my sister in law that she owes me 280 Austrian Schillings for that tour. I should have known when all the advertising said “English Language Tour only”, that it was the biggest Von Tourist Trapp in Salzburg. So many beautiful places and castles around and we couldn’t go and see them. I still remember this gay couple from San Francisco complaining to the guide: “Look, we can see so many beautiful castles in the distance, and all you show us is this gosh darned gazebo?”

Is there a way to see those places without taking the tour?

Absolutely you can do it on your own. We bought a one-day Salzburg card at the TI in the train station and saw so many incredible sites in and around the city. We were not seeking out Filming locations, but came across them naturally. Several times, a sound of music tour would stroll up and we'd hear the guide's speech about what we were visiting on our own. For example, we took the brief bus ride to Wasserspiele Hellbrunn (highly recommended to see the mechanical playful fountains) and passed by the gazebo on our way out. The people on the SoM tour only saw the gazebo and missed out on the incredible fountains.

You can do it yourself with the help of a book or with the help of a website. I kind of enjoyed the cheesy tour, but I was also in Salzburg for a week when I did it, so I had plenty of time to see other things in and around the city.

I have not done it, but have read several negative reviews about it.

We did a SOM tour about 16 years ago and loved it, but it was not a big bus tour it was a small van with a RS recommended company. I don't remember the company name or know if they are still in business, but our tour was wonderful! If I were to do it today - having been to the area numerous times I would rent a car for the day and put together my own tour.

I did the cheesy tour. It was fine, small group of people, I might even say fun, but I LOVE the Sound of Music. We did basically do all the in town stuff on our own, too, because the van just drove by them. What I'd like to mention is that a highlight was definitely the church in Mondsee and some of the mountain locations that we drove by. I'm assuming/hoping that Sounds of Music fans can get to Mondsee easily by public transportation??? Also, the Sound of Music tour did not take us to the cemetery that was the inspiration for the cemetery scenes. We had gone on our own, but I wonder if others on the bus even got to see the cemetery. And, we did go to Hellbrunn, but it was winter and the fountains would have been off, but I definitely would like to see the fountains some day and I've been told you can get there by bus.

Hi, can you take public transportation to see the church in Mondsee? Thanks.

Sally, looks like bus 140. Did you know you can use google maps for this? Just get directions from one point to another and click on the tram looking icon.

Thanks Jill.

I am a huge lover of the Sound of Music. My hubby, not as much. In 2016 we took a Bob's SOM tour in a minivan. I wasn't interested in a big bus tour. Not only did I love it, but so did my hubby. The scenery was beautiful, the tour guide/driver was informative about the movie and the true story of the Von Trapp family, and we saw famous sites from the movie. If you have a Rick Steves guidebook you get a discount on the tour. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Many of the Sound of Music sites are easy walking distance within Salzburg. Get the map that shows the sites and work in with Rick Steve's walking tour, here's an overview:
https://www.bigboytravel.com/europe/austria/salzburg/soundofmusicfilmlocations/
https://www.salzburg.info/en/salzburg/the-sound-of-music/shooting-locations
(click "Show on Map")

Nice do-it-yourself option that is fantastic.

Also, you can rent a bike to connect some of the locations more quickly. And, make the lovely ride along the Salzach riverfront to Hellbrunn Castle. Hit Leopoldskron Castle on the way back into town - toward the backside Festung Hohensalzburg (from the South). About 8-mile round-trip on bike. A decent bike is about $15 or so from the Avelo vendors at Mozartplatz. You can get a city bike for $1-2 at the water front. A little clunky, with no gear-shift, but it's not a tough ride or distance.

You will want to see the Salzkammergut lake district anyway - a great tour on the way to Hallstatt. Rent a car. If you want to hit everything, visit Hohenwerfen Castle in conjunction with Berchtesdagen. Or, at the tail end of a round trip through the lake district and Hallstatt - back to Salzburg.

If you want to do something other than a bus tour, several posters on here have mentioned in the past that they took a bike tour of Salzburg and the SOM sights there and were very pleased with it. Fraulein Maria's Bike tour gets excellent ratings on TA. If you want to go to Mondsee to the wedding church you would need to get there on your own, separately from the bike tour.

We did Bob’s tour too. Of course it’s a little cheesy. Who cares? It was fun and it took us to places outside of the city. (We didn’t have a car and aren’t big on biking.) Before the trip I watched the movie for the first time since it came out. Still loved it!

Cameron Hewitt is Rick Steves's coauthor and assistant. You may be interested in his take on the SOM tours, as a non-fan of the movie: http://blog.ricksteves.com/cameron/2016/06/doh-a-deer/

You may also be interested in a post about the complex relationship between the show, the movie, and Austrians, from the perspective of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization: http://www.rnh.com/news/812/The-Sound-Of-Music-Comes-Home

Is there a way to see those places without taking the tour?

A lot of the places the tours show you as supposedly in the movie really weren't. Like Leopoldskron. they wanted to use it as the Von Trapp home (in the movie; it wasn't the Von Trapp home in real life), but it was being used as a school and the school didn't want the interruption. So they built a set of the Leopoldskron's lakeside patio next door and used the Frohnburg, which wasn't on a lake, as the Von Trapp home. The scene where Maria is talking to Von Trapp after the boat swamping was filmed at two locations and spliced together.

The gazebo used in dance scenes was actually a set on a sound stage in Hollywood (did you think it just happened to start raining during "sixteen going on seventeen". The small gazebo they show you was only used for a few seconds at a time in distance shots.

I spent a day in Salzburg and saw most of the venues from SOM (Mirabell (do-re-mi steps), the convent, the plaza where she caught the bus, and the Residenz, where they hung the big Nazi flag after the Anschuß) just by walking around. I've picked up venues outside Salzburg (the wedding church at Mondsee and Hohenwerfen, the castle in the background when she teaches them to sing) on separate trips when passing through Salzburg.

When I took the tour one of my favorite stops was at the church where they filmed the wedding. They do go to spots that were actually used in filming the movie. They also drove by the actual Von Trapp House.

I think this is where we get the "don't be a tourist, be a traveler" type of thing from people....You are a tourist regardless...stop kidding yourself. Have fun, and stop worrying about locals thinking that oh my, you are a tourist!

Sometimes there is something fun doing something as "cheesy" as taking a tour where people sing and get in the mood.

I agree with Boba!

Question:
Do you like the movie?

YES-Go. Friend went who knew all the lyrics to the movie.He loved the sing-along on the bus and the cheese factor.

NO-Buy guidebook or search online as there are many website that tell how and where the movie was filmed in Austria.

I will have to re watch the movie before Salzburg this July. Most important is the church and the place showing the scene where Julie Andrew sang on top of the mountain. It has been so long since I last saw the movie.

There is a DVD that is some kind of anniversary release that has Julie Andrews returning to salzburg and narrating and showing sights around Salzburg. I really thought it was helpful and I enjoyed it. But I'm bonkers over the Sound of Music. I believe it was with the 50th anniversary edition of the Sound of Music.