Our Sound of Music Tour began the next morning when we waited outside for our free [22] pick-up at our hotel. We had already taken our shower [23] and eaten our breakfast [24], and were now waiting outside at 8:45 am. It was a crisp but stunningly beautiful day, and we felt lucky that we had chosen this particular day to splurge on our $33/person tour. Finally our ride came, and a spazzing Asian [25] man flew out of the vehicle and whizzed around the doors to help us in. He was obviously late in picking everybody up, and he looked a little overworked as well.

Our Irish Tour guide describes what was used as the back of the Von Trapp home to a seemingly disinterested Doug

Our next stop was the famous gazebo, which originally stood in the back of the SOM house[26], but was moved away when countless American tourists continuously appeared, skipping around it and singing inane songs such as "I am 16, going on 17."[27] So now the gazebo, significantly smaller than it appears in the movie, lies lonely on a barren field out away from anybody who might be pestered by its many visitors. We must admit that we joined those ranks, asking our guide to take our mushy picture as we looked longingly into each others eyes[28]. All the other tourists groaned at that one, but I also noticed that after that, they all took their picture in a slightly less boring than the "here - I - am - standing - in - front - of - something - famous - and - looking - bored" stance.

In the bus we learned a little about the real Von Trapp family, since we were passing the Untersburg and our guide pointed out that, on the other side of that mountain was not Switzerland but Germany[29]. We also learned that it was an incredibly small world--there was another couple on our bus who was also from Sacramento and, amazingly enough, had once lived in our same apartment complex! They weren't very interesting people, though, so we instead talked more with a retired couple who were the only other people there who adopted the travel philosophy that we did--at the very least, attempt to speak the language, and try to do as many `local' events as possible. I remember feeling a little depressed at that moment; though it was interesting to find people from `home', it made me feel like we really hadn't gotten all that far from Sacramento.

As I said before, though, that first hour was really cool, so it was only going to....okay, I won't say that again. But I was feeling like our $33, 4/hour tour was going to be worth the money. Next we were to drive through the famed `Hills are Alive' country and out to the church where the Baron and Maria were married in the movie. So our guide popped in a cassette of SOM music[30], though the bus's slow tape player made it sound like Julie Andrews at 250 pounds. The countryside was rather beautiful, though not really as picturesque as I had hoped. Our first stop was a little town in the Salzkammergut, and the tour guide told us we could `shop' here for 30 minutes. Who said anything about shopping? We paid to see sights, not to go shopping! Oh well, we wandered around lakeside, taking a few pictures and watching the hang gliders. Oh, and I went to the bathroom there, for a rudely insistent 50¢ charge! Since we only had one coin, poor Doug had to do without.

Our tour half over at this point, I figured that there was to be a lot more to see on our tour. We went to the town with the famed church, and that of the best apple strudel in the country...or so our guide boasted. When we arrived there, he said we had an hour to see the church and to eat lunch...at this restaurant he had been talking about since we got on our bus. At first I imagined it to be a kindly-old-Austrian-mother-type-place of his own personal discovery, but when our bus pulled up (next to several other buses) and everybody mindlessly cattled to this extremely upscale-looking place, I finally understood why they wanted $8 for a small sandwich! We were both starving at this point, but we knew we could do better; we instead went directly across the street, where the prices were nearly half of those at the up-scale place. It was still no bargain, though--they even had the audacity to charge $1 for tap water (and they did not warn us of it either)[31]. We did get our strudel with vanilla sauce[32], but it made this skimpy snack-lunch turn into a $17 affair. We were happy, though, with the knowledge that the SOM tour[33] at least did not get their hefty cut from our lunch.

We then explored the church, which was more Baroque than most of its Gothic predecessors, but not a whole lot more memorable than that, though, and it wasn't long before we boarded our bus back for the Mirabell gardens. Statistically speaking, our four hour tour had consisted mostly of stranding us at overpriced, highly vested-interest tourist shops. And we paid $33 for that? At least the weather was beautiful.

Though the Mirabell Gardens are free, this picture ended up costing us $66.

The funicular then took us to the top of the fortress, some 62 AS per person for the ride and entrance to the castle[35]. Though the view was wonderful, the castle itself was no match for Rheifels in St. Goar. Inside the castle walls was a court (with a charge for pre-recorded information), a mini-chapel (with a charge for pre-recorded information), and lots of stupid American tourists (actually paying for the pre-recorded information). It really was a shame, because it was difficult to enjoy the incredible history of the castle, and of Salzburg in general, with everybody having their hand out practically demanding a toll to go anywhere[36]. The only other part included in our admission charge was the slide show inside a curved alcove. We spent most of it chuckling to ourselves about how one of the three frames that made up the semi-circle was skewed and thus overlapped onto the center frame, looking incredibly mangled. OOHHHHH!![37]

A giant, spectator size game of chess. Notice the scaffolding on the church behind it.

For our dinner, we wanted to experience the famed[39] Augistner brewery, which is a br[sigma]ustuberl run by monks. Cheap, hearty `pub-grub' was rumored to be there, so we wanted to check it out. Plus it sounded fun; since the monks make the steins by hand; each one is slightly different, which means you get to pick out the exact one you want, rinse it out yourself, and then enjoy the fruit of the monastery's labors. The beer was pretty good, but the rumored cheap, hearty grub was just that, a rumor, and was terrible and expensive. Oh and, when I needed to go to the bathroom, I was appalled that they once again wanted money for it[40]...70 cents or something. There was no attendant, though, so I tried to sneak in without paying. Suddenly some burly woman opened my stall[41] and demanded her money[42]. I tried to play stupid, but didn't do it convincingly enough and ended up kicking down the dough. What a drag...

Finding ourselves rather bored at the monastery[43], we were resigned to going back to our room. We cursed ourselves at buying those tickets for the concert the next night, knowing that there was no way we would be able to enjoy ourselves spending yet another day here in `Salesburg.' We ended up going to bed even earlier than the previous night, by 8 pm. So much for a happenin' nightlife .