Saket Vora

The birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the city of the Sound of Music. We arrived here at around 10:30am from Vienna (no crazy train station transfers like with the Bratislava day-trip). It is a small town but still has a lot of tourist activity. Mix in wonderful weather (party cloudy skies, shining sun, mid 70s with a mild breeze), a European small town feel, a river with footbridge crossings, and the green foothills of the Alps surrounding you, and you’ve got a complete package from an aesthetics point of view. It was also the first place we visited where saw an abundance of bicycles as the preferred form of transportation. The city is overlooked by a castle, where nice panorama views of the city can be seen. There is a main street of commericial activity, called Gebeidestrasse where they still have the medieval style ornate signs overhanging the doors of the stores. This is also the street where Mozart was born, and we saw his house. It looked like any other house except with the words “MOZARTS GEBURTSHAUS” (literally: Mozart’s birth house) prominently affixed to the wall. My mom and sisters have a particularly strong love with the Sound of Music film, and we lastly tried unsuccessfully to reach the Abbey where they filmed some scenes. A quick tram ride back to the train station, and we were off back to Vienna.