Salzburg ... Full of a Few of My Favourite Things ; the Locals May Studiously Ignore It but Sarah Turner Finds the City's Sound of Music Link Irresistible

Summary

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A SMALL choir of children, all dressed in Austrian national costume, gather on the steps of a mansion just outside Salzburg.

A tiny white-haired woman joins them. For a fan of The Sound Of Music, it is a perfect, harmonious moment. Maria, one of the real von Trapp children, has returned to her childhood home to mark its new life as a hotel. The children start to sing Edelweiss and Maria beams with pleasure. After a while she starts to sing along and I look at the people who have gathered here. A few are joining in but most are looking a bit embarrassed. Some seem bewildered, for they have probably never heard of the song. They are Austrians. If Julie Andrews and an assortment of photogenic children had sung and danced their way around the Bullring in the Sixties it's safe to say that the city of Birmingham would have acknowledged - even encouraged - people to remember the fact. Salzburg takes a different approach. The world's most famous musical might have been a perfect showcase for the city but it is almost completely ignored by its inhabitants.

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Salzburg ... Full of a Few of My Favourite Things ; the Locals May Studiously Ignore It but Sarah Turner Finds the City's Sound of Music Link Irresistible

Things that do not make the people of Salzburg happy include the fact that three out of four Americans and - at a rough guess - about 90 per cent of British visitors come to Salzburg to indulge in the love of all things Maria. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Austrians spend their time denying that schnitzel with noodles is one of their favourite things (spared the need to rhyme with strudels, most Austrians would pair it with boiled potatoes). Above all, ...

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