Travel News

15 Salzburg Sound of Music Sites to Visit

Von Trapp family singers rehearsing

Whether you love it or hate it, everyone can agree that The Sound of Music is a timeless, worldwide classic, being one of the most popular and quoted musicals of all time. Set in the spellbinding country of Austria, it’s hard not to find some sort of enchantment with this musical.

Much of this film was shot around the historic and beautiful city of Salzburg. Consequently, thousands of people from around the world have visited Salzburg to feel the magic and learn the history of the city, the film, and the real-life von Trapp family, who inspired the events of the film.

Even if you’re not a fanatic, The Sound of Music filming locations in and around Salzburg are stunning and worth seeing, whether part of a private bus tour or a self-guided walking tour.

A Brief History of The Sound of Music

This family-friendly movie seems so saccharine to the point where many may assume it’s fiction. But beneath the fairytale facade beats the heart of a true story. Before we get onto the top Sound of Music film locations worth visiting, let’s take a closer look at some tidbits about this beloved musical movie.

The events that inspired the film took place in Austria during the 1920s and 1930s

The Sound of Music movie is actually based on real events. The real-life von Trapp family was an Austrian family of singers that performed around the world as a family choir.

Von Trapp family singers rehearsing
Trapp Family Singers-Metropolitan Music Bureau / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

The story follows the widowed Captain Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp, his seven children, and his second wife Maria who lived in Salzburg. Maria was a governess Captain von Trapp hired from a convent to help care for his children. They would go on to have three more little von Trapps, bringing the number of children up to ten!

The family was known throughout Salzburg for possessing angelic voices and frequently performed for large audiences (this was a savvy move on Georg’s part, as the family fortune had been wiped out due to the consequences of the Great Depression). They were even invited to perform in front of Adolf Hitler, but Georg, disgusted by the Nazi ideology, declined. It wouldn’t be the last time he said no to the Nazis.

Captain von Trapp was a decorated submarine captain in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who sank several Allied civilian ships during World War I. Following the German annexation of Austria in March 1938, Georg was offered a commission in the Kriegsmarine…

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