These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

This past week Les and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary.  One of the jokes in our home is that part of the reason we have made it this long is because we have only been together for about 1/2 of our anniversaries.  Not true about the marriage working because of this but true that we haven't been able to celebrate that special day together often.  This year we decided to take Grayson and Landon with us to Salzburg, Austria for the weekend to celebrate.  So, in harmony with one of my favorite songs from my favorite movie.....                          

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS  (from our trip.)

Driving towards Salzburg, Austria and seeing this castle on a high hill in the Alps.  

Photo courtesy Grayson Call

The Austrian Alps.  Truly God's masterpiece.  I love my Sawtooth Mountains, but they are the little sister to these majestic mountains.  

This was part of our Sound of Music Tour.  This is Leopold's Crown Palace now privately owned and used for scientists.  This is the lake Maria and the children fell in while rowing the canoe when they saw the Captain.  The terraces were used as the rear of the Captain's house.  Inside is a Venetian Room that was the inspiration for the ballroom scene.  

Les and I next to the gazebo from the Sound of Music where Liesl and Rolf sang "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" and the Captain and Maria sang "Something Good".  

Landon and Grayson in front of the Gazebo.  

A view of one of the beautiful lakes north of Salzburg in an area that they filmed some of the outings Maria and the children took.  The Alps, of course, are framing that gorgeous lake. 

Landon, Les and Grayson. Three of my favorite guys!  Just missing one more.

Les and I 

Lake town called Mondsee where we had lunch and saw the chapel they used for the wedding scene in Sound of Music.

Outside of the church in Mondsee,

The ivy-covered archway that Maria and the children ran through when singing "Do-Re-Mi".  It's located in the Mirabell Gardens.

(Random kid who wouldn't get out of the picture)

The Marionette Museum.  I loved the scene in "The Sound of Music" where the children and Maria put on a puppet show.  "High on a hill..."

View of the "Old" side of Salzburg, where we stayed.  Cathedrals, festival hall, Mozart's home, and  up on that hill, the Hohensalzburg Fortress, founded in 1077.  It's HUGE and on of the only fortresses in Europe that was never taken.   We had a grand time climbing up there (my calves are still telling me about it).  We even got to see the torture room.  Pretty sick to see what humans used on other humans to exact pain, lots and lots of pain.  

Les and Grayson (who was beside himself in this castle!) checking out different forms of torture.  Hmmmm.

Castle door.  I adore doors.  (those words sound funny together so there you have it).  They all lead to somewhere new.

Beautiful fountain in the Residence Plaza.  Anything with horses has my heart a'flutter.

Inside the Dome Cathedral.  It was breathtaking and opulent.  It was my favorite of the three cathedrals we saw.  It wasn't as dark and oppressive.  The others had a lot of black and gold everywhere.  We were able to go beneath it and see the catacombs of where the Archbishops were buried.  Very interesting.

Of course we had to sample the local fare.  Homemade bratwurst and sauerkraut.  We parked ourselves inside a tent and listened to some live music as we ate.  So good.  We also had large pretzels that Salzburg is apparently famous for.  Les of course ended up wanting to share mine.  He didn't care for his.  We ate Shnitzel (without noodles) and Apple Strudel (several times) with warm vanilla sauce.  To die for!! 

  Les and Landon tried the famous Salzburg Nockerl (an egg and sugar based sweet souffle with raspberries). 

The highlight for me was on our first evening when Les and I got dressed up, walked to Mozart's Square and had a wonderful dinner listening to excerpts of 3 of Mozart's operas in-between delicious dinner courses.  The ballroom was beautiful. We were lucky to be right in the front.  It was such a romantic night with the man of my dreams.
We were at a table with an interesting assortment of people.  One older couple was from France.  A very young couple was from Moscow, Russia.  The man from the last couple was from Austria and the lady was from India and spoke with a British accent.  The French lady kept staring at me throughout the evening and people kept to themselves.  I was looking around and seeing other tables enjoying mingling so I decided to be the instigator and get our table talking.  It worked for a bit until the French lady found out I was American.  She thought I was Austrian. (I haven't heard that one before).  She ended up talking with the Russians and we visited with our other neighbors.

To cap it all off, we had a fabulous trip filled with yummy music, delicious food, gorgeous architecture, beautiful weather, adventure and special people.  I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate 21 years of marriage (except to have Mitchell with us). Les bought me an antique silver filigree necklace from a little antique shop.  A beautiful reminder of our trip and our love. We can't wait to go back and see what we didn't have time to see.  Salzburg is really one of my favorite places now!  

OK, one last picture.  This is the horse bath built in the 1600s so the Archbishop's horse could be clean and gorgeous.  There are some fantastic murals behind it.  I had those pictures but haven't found them yet.  I'll post later.