I know all the words to ‘The Sound of Music’ and I don’t just mean to the songs either. On long car trips I used to serenade my family with renditions of the entire film, doing the voices of all the different characters. No wonder my Mum used to get those sucking sweets…

The Sound of Music has a league of loyal fans, probably many who haven’t grown out of dressing in curtains and sporting a bowl cut, and there are plenty of attractions to bring that ‘Re a drop of golden sun’ to their lives including a trip to the Salzburg Festival and Von Trapp tours around the town, but getting to stay in the Villa Trapp is a pretty enticing idea. Not the film set, but the actual family home, most lately a monastery.

Like the film tells us, the Von Trapps had to leave the house fleeing from the Nazis in 1938, and because it was so grand and central it was appropriated by Himmler. Monks from the “Missionaries of the Precious Blood” have occupied the building since the war and haven’t let anyone past the gates but they’ve now been settled in next door and the building repaired, but it still looks unremarkable from the outside, one of many similar villas in this part of town. Now listed, it’s in the same state as it was when the Von Trapps were in residence, pale yellow coloured and blocky, with three stories, much of the top floor curving attic rooms.

To get to the villa, alight at Bahnhof Aigen, the station the Von Trapps took flight from. The hotel has 14 rooms including a wedding suite complete with chapel. The Von Trapp Park is one of the largest private parks in Salzburg and is also part of the hotel complex. The ground floor displays items from the family collection and tells the story of the real Von Trapps – for example the first Mrs. Von Trapp died at 31 of scarlet fever after having 7 children and Maria bore the Baron/ Captain two more. I didn't know about that, turns out the real story is more fascinating than the film.

Villa Trapp.

Written by  Kat Mackintosh.

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