These are a few of my favorite things...

I am in Salzburg, Austria, where the movie "The Sound of Music" was set and parts of it were filmed here.  That being said, the town has really grasped on to that and made that part of who they are now.  There are Sound of Music bus tours and the hostel that I am staying at plays the movie in one of the dining rooms, every night.

The city is beautiful, with palaces and castles and gardens and churches which give it a cool magical old city feel.  The flowers in the Mirabell garden were either in bloom or recently planted, but either way, it was a wonderful color explosion.

Trivia tidbit: Salzburg is also where Mozart was born.

I also went to a palace called Schloss Hellbrunn which was a palace that an archbishop built that was supposed to be a place where people would come and the palace would make the people be able to escape the monotony of everyday life.  One way he did this was that he had trick fountains all around the palace.  One of them was in the shape of a table and chairs.  The people would all sit around the table with the archbishop and at some point, all of the seats would have water shooting up from underneath... all except for the bishop's seat.  And the people were not allowed to stand before the bishop so they would have to sit there until he stood up.  I'm sure he had fun with that.  All around the gardens, there were little spouts that would shoot water at the unsuspecting (myself included).  It was fun because the water would get some people and everyone in the group would laugh.  I can see how these fountains were able to make people forget about their everyday lives when touring the gardens.

ps... i forgot to mention about Switzerland, I had Swiss cheese (I think they just call it cheese there) and Gruyere (delicious).  The money in Switzerland is magical. When the coins rattle around in your pocket, they sound like Santa's sleigh bells and the paper money is the most colorful I have ever seen.  And on one of the ski gondolas that I was on, a bunch of people started yodeling.

Horse fountain that was featured in the beginning of the Sound of Music.  The fountain was designed by Bernini.

At the top of the dome in the Salzburg Cathedral.  The inside of cathedral was beautiful with frescoes that told many of the stories of the bible.

City view from up on the hill.

Mirabell Garden with Fortress Hohensalzburg on the hill in the background.

Gardens from the other side.  The sky almost looks fake.

Ornate stone mosaic ceiling in the trick fountain area at Hellbrunn.

 

Cool sight at the trick fountains.  Almost every piece of this moves and a water organ plays all using water by gravity to move it all.

Gazebo from sound of music.  This was given to the city from the production company after Sound of Music was finished.

Beautiful backdrop.

Cool view of the city.