We both slept much better last night, it was a little cooler inside the apartment from all of the rain we had before we went to bed, and so we were able to close off some of the windows and eliminate some of the road noise from outside.
I woke up about 6:00 AM, and thought about sleeping in a little more, but we will have to get up very early tomorrow for our travels home, so I just thought I would stick with my early rising routine.
I made a cup of coffee and worked on the blog while Stephanie slept in a little longer, why break our routine now. The peaceful morning time allows me to work without distraction.
Our plan for today was to drive to a couple of the Sound of Music Movie sights closer to Salzburg, and hoping for better weather. The sun was peeking through the clouds a little this morning, and it was cooler outside, about 46 degrees.
We were not in a real hurry, the sights were close to the city center so we did not have far to go. We were going to visit the building used as the home of Captain Von Trapp in the movie, which is now the Schloss Leopoldskron Hotel. It was once a palace that was built in 1736. It was turned into a privately owned hotel in 2014. It is built on a pond, which was the water in the background in the Sound Of Music Movie for the outside filming at the Villa.
The other sight we planned on visiting today was the Mirabell Palace and Gardens, which has the stone steps used for the Do-Re-Mi song in the movie.
We then planned on returning the rental car to the local Avis/Budget office near the train station, since it was not far from the Mirabell Palace and Gardens.
We got ready and were walking to the car parking lot by 10:00 AM. We used Google Maps for the drive to the Schloss Leopoldskron, but when Google Maps said we were there, all we saw was a gate with a sign saying the entrance was located somewhere that was behind us. We were on a one way road, so we actually traveled around the entire pond that the Schloss Leopoldskron is built next to. There was not any place to park anywhere around the pond perimeter, and we thought that strange for such a well known sight. We finally found a parking area next to a restaurant, and there was a trail which appeared to go over to the large pond behind the Schloss Leopoldskron. We were not sure if we could park here so Stephanie asked a man who was at a restaurant building doing some maintenance, and he said it was OK. There were a few other cars parking there already.
The Schloss Leopoldskron and Pond
The trail did not connect directly to the walkway around the pond, but there was another steep area people had obviously used in the past to get over to the pond walkway. It was steep and muddy, but we made it to the other side without incident. We walked a bit farther to get a better vantage point for a photo across the water, and then realized all we had needed to do was to walk around the restaurant, and we would have come to this same walkway without having tested the slippery slope. Oh well, now we knew how to get back.
We started to walk toward the Schloss Leopoldskron, and found the same gate we had seen from the car. It was open, so we walked in. There were some signs saying that this was private property, and only available for access by hotel guests. We saw a man about 100 feet away, and he was watching us as we walked around the entrance gate. We were sure he knew we were tourists, so we decided not to go any farther onto the property, and respect the signage. Obviously, either due to Covid, or just changes in general, this was no longer an accessible sight for Sound of Music Movie enthusiasts. We had not read anywhere online that this property was no longer open to visit, everything we saw said this was a great place to visit.
We were disappointed, but understood. This had been the location used for the pink lemonade scene, the scene where Captain Von Trapp and Maria danced at the party, and where the children and Maria fell into the lake from the boat. Our only view was from far away across the pond, which did not look as well kept up now as it had been in the movie so many years ago.
We headed back to the car and then drove to the Mirabell Palace and Gardens. It was more in town, so we had to navigate through some traffic to get there. We arrived, but there was no where to park that we saw right off. We thought we would just go ahead and return the rental car instead, and just walk back here from there since we did not see any parking.
However, about 4 blocks away, we saw an underground parking lot and headed in. Wow, the parking spaces were tight, we finally found one and had to squeeze in. The lot was pretty full, but we luckily saw someone leaving a space, which we took. By the time we were parked and heading up the steps to ground level outside, there were cars backed up and waiting to get into the lot at the automated ticket dispensing machine.
Mirabell Palace and Gardens
We took our parking ticket with us knowing we would need to pay somewhere later on the way back to the car. On the way out of the garage, we saw the parking payment machine. It was up the stairs at the exit to the street level.
We walked to the far end of the gardens, and found an entrance and proceeded through a gate. The gardens were beautiful, especially since the sun was now shining. We walked from one end to the other and finally found the stone steps used for the Do-Re-Mi scene as well as the fountain they all danced around during that song. The fountain was not functioning, and they were planting a lot of new flowers around it, so that was a little disappointing
Do-Re-Mi Staircase
We have to say that most of these Sound of Music filming locations were underwhelming. We were glad to try and see them, but obviously, time and tourism had possibly diminished their beauty. We really did not know before this trip that the various locations for the movie were so disconnected by distance, showing the effect that Hollywood can have on shooting scenes at so many different areas and making it seem that they are all at the same location for the final movie, or at least more closely connected.
St. Andrews Church
After we left the Mirabell Palace and Gardens, we headed back to the parking garage. There was a Catholic church nearby, St. Andrews, that was on the way to the garage, so we stopped by for a visit. It was a large church, but not very ornate inside. There was a large open air market going on outside the church and all around that area. There were quite a few vendors selling vegetables, flowers, food, meats, and beer.
We headed back to the garage, paid our Euro 2.00 parking fee, and went downstairs to the car. Stephanie had to help me navigate to get the car out of the tight space. We are just not used to back-up cameras, and the car was a little difficult to see out of through the rear side windows.
From the garage, we headed to the Avis/Budget Car Rental return location. Google Maps failed to get us there, we went around the block a couple of times to where Google Maps indicated the rental office was located, but did not see the office. I had looked online this morning, and the office was clearly visible form the street at the correct address. We decided to use the car GPS and it directed us there without issue. Google Maps was not even close, we are not sure why, but we were at least 2-3 block off.
We parked and headed to the office. For whatever reason, the door was locked and no one was there. We knocked on the door, but no one came out from the back. It was right at 12 noon, so maybe they were at lunch. We tried to call the number on the AutoEurope Rental Agreement for this location, but it went to the Avis Main line. Then we tried another number listed on the actual rental agreement. Someone answered the phone and I explained we were trying to return a car. The man on the phone said the office was not open except for designated rental pick-ups due to the lack of car rentals during Covid.
I asked how we were supposed to return the car and he said to use the key drop box. Then I asked where we were to park the car and he tried to explain we needed to go to a hotel next door, and park in their private lot. I got confused, thinking it was the building next door in the other direction We finally communicated long enough to get the parking area for the drop off worked out, but I was not happy that we were not going to have someone give us a receipt for the return right now. He said it would probably be tomorrow before we received a confirmation that the car was returned. We were having flashbacks of our experience with Avis in Italy in 2019 when we got stuck with extra charges because “the return system was down”, and the car was used by someone else for a couple of days after we turned it in.
We parked the car in the designated hotel lot and then we took a bunch of pictures of the car in case there were damage claims later on, and also took photos of the odometer and gas gauge readings with the key ring tag information visible to confirm the rental.
We will just have to hope everything goes right. At least the rental was expiring in a couple of hours, so no one could use the car on any extra days like happened to us in Italy. (Footnote: The car rental charges ended up being exactly what we paid through AutoEurope. We never received a final receipt via email, but were able to go to the Budget Website and download a copy showing the final charges. It took over a week for the credit authorization for potential extra charges to be removed from our credit card after we got home, but the rental worked out fine),
We were right next to the train station, so we headed to the bus lot outside the station to try and find the Bus 22 pick up area. Bus 22 goes back toward the apartment and will also be the bus we take tomorrow to come back to the train station for our train to Munich. We needed to go to the other side of the train station for Bus 22, so we headed into the station and found a sandwich shop to get a small bite to eat for lunch.
We then walked to the designated stop for Bus 22 and only had to wait about 10 minutes for the bus to arrive. We went ahead and purchased tickets through their App so we were ready to board when the bus arrived.
Enjoying Beers Outside On Our Last Day
It was only about a 12 minute ride to the stop nearest the Apartment, and we walked to the apartment to drop off some gear and use the restroom. The bus tickets were good for unlimited rides for one hour, so once we were finished at the apartment, we walked back to the same bus stop we got off at to take the bus back toward the city center The stop we needed to get off at was only one long stop away, but why not use the bus instead of the extra walking, especially since we already had a ticket.
After we got off the bus, we headed into the old town looking for somewhere to sit and relax, and have a cold beer. This was our last day of vacation, and we wanted to enjoy the nice afternoon. The sun finally had come out, but there was a cool breeze. We finally found an outside dining area and sat at a table under a large umbrella. We each ordered a beer, and enjoyed them while doing some people watching. We got another round of beers, and decided we would just eat here tonight, well more like late this afternoon.
Our Pizza Dinner & More Beers
More Beers……
We ended up ordering a pizza to split, and a third round of beers. The pizza was excellent, much better than what we ordered yesterday for lunch that had been a pizza in name only!
About 4:30 PM, our stomachs were full and our beers were empty, so we paid and walked back to the apartment. We did most of our packing so we could just relax tonight and have a little wine.
It will be an early wake up alarm time tomorrow morning, at least for Stephanie. I was already used to the early mornings. We have to catch a bus at 7:30 AM, so we need to leave the apartment by about 7:10 AM and walk to the bus stop. Our train from Salzburg to Munich leaves at 8:00 AM, and we are scheduled to arrive at the Munich Airport around 10:15 AM, making one train connection on the way.
By 10:30 PM, we were heading to sleep.