Untersberg – Off We Go

“Do you think we’ve become closer since coming to Europe together?” I asked Sophie a few days ago.

She tossed her little head and hit me across the face with her ponytail. “Maybe,” she replied.

Sophie in the cable car

In such circumstances, a shared adventure was needed, just to cement the new, closer relationship. It wasn’t enough that I had fed and clothed her and catered to her every whim for nearly three months on our trip. I realized that I would have to do more.

Which is why, this morning, on our last day in Salzburg, when she said, with a sorrowful look, “I just wanted to go up the Untersberg,” I said to her, “There’s still time. We could go today.”

It was hot and muggy in Salzburg, but up on the Untersberg the air was cool and fresh. Snow still lay in the shady hollows, allowing Sophie to frolic for a while and make a snowball. Our cameras were unable to capture the beauty of the views, but we walked around companionably and snapped pictures of the mountains, the snow, the blue distance and the miniature world below us. No harm in trying.

The blue distance

Sophie was a bit worried that I might trip and fall headlong over the steep edges. “You’re more unco than I am,” she explained. I think this showed that, despite her earlier offhand remark about our mother-daughter relationship, she really does care.

She even let me eat some of her Konfekt ice cream after we’d returned to the valley. If that doesn’t show an improved relationship, what does?

Love from Ros

Pockets of snow despite the sunlight

The splendour of the mountains

Sun and snow

The miniature world below and some very strong cables

“I’m 16 years old and I don’t need a governess.”

Sophie can quote this and many other lines from that famous movie with great conviction.

Yet for some reason, she didn’t appreciate it when I woke her up this morning by singing “The hills are alive with the sound of music”. I just wanted to get her in the mood for our tour.

Our guide for the “Sound of Music” tour told us about all the liberties Hollywood had taken with the truth whilst making the film and revealed many other interesting details. For instance, the Untersberg Mountain on which Maria so memorably twirled at the start of the film was actually about 10 kilometres from the Nonnberg Abbey where she was a novice. The lake into which the children somersaulted was icy cold, but the directors made them fall in twice, because on the first occasion they all fell out on the same side of the boat. Julie Andrews came up with Gretel in her arms after the first ducking, but the second time Gretel almost drowned, because Julie Andrews fell out on the opposite side of the boat. Poor little Gretel! The real Von Trapp family escaped by train to Italy and travelled from there to England and finally the United States; walking out over the mountains would actually have taken them into Bavaria, where Hitler had built his secret headquarters. Whoops!

A gardener trims the Mirabell Palace garden, where many scenes of the movie were shot

I hadn’t quite realized that the film has such a fanatical following. Our tour guide mentioned people he had met who watched the film twice every day. The gazebo even had to be locked because an 80-year-old woman visitor fell and injured herself while dancing around on the benches. Compared to these people, Sophie’s addiction to the film is mild indeed.

That famous gazebo

I heard one man on our tour telling the guide that he had seen the film 2000 times. His excuse was that he had worked as a projectionist. A likely story.

There was no karaoke, but I did enjoy singing along on the bus. Sophie looked pained and Patrick long-suffering.

I wonder if the Austrians who live in the mountains through which we drove (far too quickly for my liking) ever become immune to their astounding beauty. The mountain lakes glistened in the first real heat of summer and for a moment I even stopped singing to admire them.

In the streets of Mondsee

After a few hours of driving through that stunning landscape, we ate apple strudel with vanilla sauce at Mondsee and drove back to Salzburg on the soulless autobahn. Just the kind of reality check we needed.

The film may be largely fictional but the scenery is real, imposing and unforgettable.

Ros