Our Sound Of Music Bike Tour

Hi everyone,

Well we just got back from our bike tour through Salzburgerland. It is the area around and including the city of Salzburg. Salzburg is famous first and foremost as the city where Mozart was born, lived and created his music. The second most famous event of Salzburg, for Americans and Britains is that the Sound of Music was filmed in and around Salzburg. Now I feel that I kept with this idea of the Sound of Music on our tour. My whining and groaning, gasping for air while biking (actually most of the time walking) up and down the hillsides could have been recorded as "My Song".

Wolfgang can be proud to say that he and the three Electric motor bikes were the only ones, I believe, to ride up and down every "hill" we rode over. The catalog stated that the tour was a little hilly and I realize that I live in the land of Bergwanderers but hey, a hill is a hill and a mountain is a mountain. Some of these things were just plain old mountains! A friend of mine's daughter calls the power bike riders "Spandexters". I believe I was on the Spandexter tour. Gee I believe that you too can now hear my song.

All in all we had a great time. The last day, we had to stop earlier than we wanted but it started raining very hard and we voted to stop, eat lunch and take the bus. It was an excellent idea. This blog is done a little differently. I have made section of pictures. They may be from different days but it was easilier to organize and hey, you weren't there so you won't know the difference anyway, now will you.

So please, as always, enjoy our 10Seen Tour (1o different lakes) hosted by our favorite bike tour company Bender Royal Tours.

Heading out. This shot is the day before we left. We must always deliver our bikes the day before so they can be loaded in the trailer and we can head out earlier on our first travel day. Notice our neighbor cat. He is a very handsome guy but has some real CATitude.

Our bus for the trip. There were only 23 of us in total for this ride. It was lovely for us but costly for the tour company. The bus and trailer has seats for 40. We were very comfortable. That's our bus driver Dieter and the guy in the red jacket and green cap is our guide Peter. At our first rest stop, we were given a complementary cup of coffee.

Here is the city of Salzburg. On the hill you will see the Castle overlooking the City. Mozart played his music in this castle. What is more important is that my mother Natalie, John's mother Virginia and my friend Linda's mother Shirley got their entire tour group kicked out of a beerhall in Salzburg. They were in a wonderful beerhall in a monastery and it was forbidden to sing in the hall. A young group of german men were singing anyway and were asked to leave. The three "girls" took it upon themselves to protest the removal of the singers by beginning to sing themselves and the entire group was asked to leave, all 35 of them. John was never so proud!

Our Hotel in Thalgau. It is located about 30 minutes outside of the actual City of Salzburg. The man who owns this hotel use to work as a chef for the Westin Hotel Chain and for the US Consulate. We had the most incredible food on this trip!

Our room. Not fancy but it came with a private bath. We did have to bring our own soap and hair dryer but hey the food was great.

We also had a balcony. The weather really didn't permit us to make much use of it, but I am sure in nice weather it would have been great.

Our first bike day. It is unbelievably beautiful. Little did I know what was coming.

This was the view while they unloaded our bikes. Every day we had wonderful views like this and sometimes I enjoyed them when I could see through my sweat!

The first of the 10 Lakes, Lake Fuschl.

This is one of our many hills. You really can't see how long or steep it is but it was. The next few pictures show me in different stages of going up hill.

Happily walking up a hill with our guide Peter.

I know it doesn't look like much but you just can't see what we had already climbed.

OK, almost dead but I made it all the way up.

Almost everyday we had a picnic. They are always fun. The bus drives ahead to a meeting point with our group and then the driver sets up a picnic. There are usually a variety of things to eat but on this day our friend Ingrid had a flat tire and we couldn't fix it so the bus had to get them. This put our bus driver behind for the day so only Rindswurst (beef hotdogs) were available. To make up for the limited menu, our driver stopped and bought cake. Cake is Germany is an event so it was very nice that he provided it to us.

So Wolfgang and our friend Willie were trying to find a hole in an intertube. To do so, you need water so they found a puddle of water out in the meadow and checked. No holes were found and we still have no idea why the tire lost all of its air but the bike was repaired and they were on their way the next day.

Ingrid and Willie pumping up the tire once again.

A picture of our bikes and our stuff at one of our 10 lakes.

Once again, another day, another picnic.

So this is a town stop that we made. It is the town of Mondsee on the Mondsee (Moonlake). This is the actual church used in the movie for the wedding between Maria and Herr VonTrapp. The couple you see with us are Willie and Ingrid. We met them on our first bike tour 5 years ago and we planned this trip together. They are really great.

This is a picture of Wolfgang in front of the Drachenwand (Dragon Wall).
The huge Granite mountain behind him.

On our third day, we started our tour here on the Seewalchen. I wish you could have seen the color of the water. It was a really beautiful location.

Just someone's house.

OK, now here is something really unique. These are rabbit hutches that someone built for their pet rabbits. One cage had only one black rabbit and one had four rabbits. I am not sure if the segregation was based on color or that he was a boy. You know those rabbits!

That is the Seewalchen below. This was another walker hill.

We ended our day at the Traunsee in the town of Gmunden. What a beautiful town but we were all tired and the wind was really strong so it was a good place to end the day's ride.

This is a picture of the trailer where our bikes were stored everyday. The guys are moving it so it can be hooked to the bus. This was the beginning of our last biking day. Sadly, we had to stop short of our goal, St. Wolfgang See because it started to rain so hard, we voted to load and ride the last few kilometers to St. Wolfgang. It was a good choice because it never stopped raining all the rest of the day.

Riding through a bike tunnel.

This is a very famous restaurant on the St. Wolfgang See. A very popular German song talks about this location so being the good tourists that we are, we had to go and have coffee and cake. Yes, I know that we are really attractive but you ride for about 20 miles in the rain, get on a bus and then walk through the rain to get to the famous cafe and still look good. Oh and it was about 55 degrees fahrenheit so excuse the seven layers of clothing.

The St. Wolfgang See.

Our last day. Loading the bus for the ride home. So our ride the year is over. I survived the hills and my dear husband survived my whining about the hills. The food was wonderful and our friends were fun. Here's to our tour for next year, Ireland, if I can survive the hills.