Sound of Music Turns 50, Austria Awaits

Austria’s Lake Country near Salzburg. Photo from VBT.

The much-beloved film The Sound of Music, which was released in 1965 and won the Oscar for Best Picture that year, did most of its location shooting in and around the city of Salzburg, Austria.

It’s hard to imagine many baby boomers who don’t know the (somewhat fictionalized) story of how the musically inclined von Trapps — composed of would-be-nun-turned-nanny Maria (Julie Andrews), Baron von Trapp (Christopher Plummer), and a parcel of cute kids who could belt out catchy tunes like “Do-Re-Mi” — became a family and fled the Nazis in Austria for safe haven elsewhere.

After hiking over the mountains (in the movie, at least), they eventually made their way to the United States and became known as the Trapp Family Singers.

The gorgeous Austrian scenery, the infectious music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Julie Andrews twirling on a mountaintop in the… Continue reading →