The Sound of Music filming locations
Film locations: Austria; Los Angeles
The Sound of Music filming location: Nonnberg Abbey, Nonnberg Gasse, Salzburg, Austria
The film of the phenomenally successful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was shot on lots of real locations around Salzburg, Austria, though plenty more were recreated in the 20th Century-Fox studios in Hollywood.
The opening aerial shots are Salzburg’s glorious Lake District, the Salzkammergut. The castles you can see are Fuchsl, 12 miles east of Salzburg on the Fuchslee, clearest of the Salzkammergut lakes, and Schloss Anif, off E55 a few miles south of Salzburg.
The mountain, atop which Maria (Julie Andrews) makes her first twirling appearance, is Mellweg, near the Bavarian village of Schellenberg, about six miles from Salzburg. Don’t be too disappointed – the birch trees and the babbling brook were added for the movie.
The Sound of Music filming location: Maria’s abbey: Nonnberg Abbey, Nonnberg Gasse, Salzburg, Austria
Convent interiors were recreated in the studio, but the exterior really is Maria’s abbey. It’s Nonnberg Abbey, Nonnberg Gasse, where you can visit the courtyard and peek inside the chapel (which looks nothing like the interior recreated back in Hollywood).
The film cheats a little with the exterior, too. As you’ll find if you visit, the real Nonnberg Abbey doesn’t look out over the picturesque old town of Salzburg, but to the nondescript southern suburbs. The reverse shot, of Maria leaving the abbey, filmed way across the city on the Winkler Terrace (where the Do Re Mi number later begins).
The Sound of Music filming location: the view 'from' the abbey: Winkler Terrace, looking over Salzburg toward Nonnberg Abbey, Salzburg, Austria
As Maria leaves to take up her post with the Von Trapp family, I Have Confidence in Me was filmed in Salzburg’s Old Town, in the Residenzplatz, where you’ll see the Domplatz arches, through which Maria enters, and the Residenz Fountain, in which she splashes.
The Sound of Music filming location: Maria splashes in the Residenzbrunner on her way to the Von Trapp house: Residenzplatz, Salzburg, Austria
The ‘Villa Von Trapp’ is a combination of two different Salzburg locations. The tree-shaded lane, where Maria alights from the bus, is Hellbrunner Allee, running south from the old town. Here you’ll recognise Schloss Frohnburg, a 17th century country house, now the Mozarteum Music Academy, which was used for the intimidating gates and front entrance of the villa which Maria nervously approaches.
The Sound of Music filming location: Maria arrives at the Von Trapp mansion: Hellbrunner Allee, Salzburg, Austria
The lakeside terrace, though, was filmed at Schloss Leopoldskron, a rococo castle on Leopoldskroner Teich, a small artificial lake on the southwest of the town. Now a private college, you can view Leopoldskron across the lake from K–nig Ludwig Strasse.
The Sound of Music filming location: the rear, lakeside terrace, of the ‘Von Trapp’ mansion: Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria
The real Villa Trapp, by the way, is in Aigen, 30 miles northwest of Linz in the very north of Austria near the German and Czech borders.
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The Sound of Music, 1965
Director
Cast
visit the film locations
Salzburg: Flights: Salzburg WA Mozart Airport
Salzburg: Tourism
Several companies offer Sound of Music tours which visit the locations: try Bob’s Special Tours (tel: 0662. 872484) or Panorama Tours, Mirabell Square (tel: 0662.871618)
Trivia
WWII actioner Where Eagles Dare, with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, was filmed at the village of Werfen, about half an hour by train from Salzburg. The European hotel in Just Married, with Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, is the same castle.