Private Sound of Music Tour – 60 years anniversary

This is the version of the Salzburg music day that cannot be copied, because it depends on one person. The tour is conducted throughout by Baron Peter von Wertheim, a descendant of the von Trapp family, who guides the film locations in the morning, plays the violin at the gazebo in the afternoon and the organ in the church at Arnsdorf, and marks the sixtieth anniversary of the film by connecting it to the second piece of music this region gave the world. Eight hours, one host, and no group beyond your clients.

The morning: the film and the family

The day starts on the original locations in and around Salzburg – the Mirabell Gardens, the abbey terrace, the lakeside house that stood in for the villa – with the difference that the person telling the story is related to the people in it. What your clients get is not a script but the family’s own account: what the film changed, what it invented, and what the years after 1938 were actually like. At the gazebo the guide takes out a violin and plays Edelweiss, and the party sings along if it wants to. Guests report that as the moment of the day, which is not what the itinerary would predict.

The afternoon: the Silent Night region

The route then heads north out of Salzburg into the country where Silent Night was written. At Arnsdorf the party visits the schoolhouse where the composer Franz Xaver Gruber taught and the church next to it, where the Baron plays an organ intermezzo – a private performance in an empty village church, which is an unusual thing to be given. The day ends at Oberndorf, at the memorial chapel that stands where the carol was first sung on Christmas Eve 1818, with a closing violin piece. The two halves belong together: the same small stretch of Salzburg countryside produced the most performed carol in the world and the most watched musical film ever made.

Booking, and who it is for

Advance booking is essential rather than advisable. One guide means one party a day, and the December dates – when the Silent Night sites are at their most affecting and also their busiest – are committed months out. The day suits multi-generational families, music-minded travellers, returning visitors who have already done the standard circuit, and anyone marking an occasion. It is not the cheapest way to see the film locations and it is not meant to be; clients who want the straightforward version should take the four-hour Sound of Music tour by car instead. In December the day pairs naturally with the private Salzburg Christmas market walking tour, and at any season with the two-hour private old town walking tour. Guide credentials generally are set out under licensed private guides; to hold a date, request availability and net rates for this tour.