The Shields: A Few of My Favorite Things: Neuschwanstein, the Alps, Salzburg and more!

Oh my goodness, this post is LONG overdue because it was truly a dream come true. I have grown up in a "Sound of Music" loving home. So when we were finally able to have a "Sound of Music" weekend, I could hardly contain my giddiness! You can ask Michael, I squealed many times on this trip!

We flew into Munich, Germany and immediately drove to Neuschwanstein Castle. It's pretty remarkable. I love the location of this castle. Not only is it incredibly striking on the mountainside but it also surrounded by beautiful fields and wonderful Bavarian homes and pastoral villages.

Of all our trips, we forgot our umbrellas this one time and Mother Nature wanted to make sure we would never forget again. Haha! We got rained on a lot! It was pretty sporadic too. One of the major downpours happened while we were pushing the stroller up the hill to the castle. It was pretty funny and luckily didn't last long. And naturally, all that RIDING up the hill was exhausting...

The castle was beautiful and we enjoyed our tour. We couldn't take pictures inside but anyone who lived there had to be in some good shape with the hill and all the stairs! Ha! Laila loved assigning all the towers to each princess that she could name.

The next day, we went hiking up in the Austrian Alps. We went to the beautiful resevoir that we had seen pictures of full with incredible water from snow and glacier run off. However, when we got there it looked more like this....

...I guess it's better to go in August/September when it's more full!

We decided to go on a hike and Michael read a map that this certain trail makes a loop. However, upon closer inspection and a lot of climbing up, we realized it was no loop at all...

...luckily it gave us some great backdrops.

We fell in love with the Alps. Harrison also made a new love that day too...

...kisses for everyone- Even the man in the mural. haha!

Then the next part of our trip happened! (Cue "The Sound of Music" soundtrack!) We only got to stay in Salzburg for one night. So we decided to stay at the incredibly iconic Schloss Leopolskron where the backyard was filmed for the movie. They recently turned it into a hotel in 2014 and oh how I loved it!

Here's a room tour:

Although the interior was shot on a set, I still couldn't resist channeling my inner Maria:

The building was incredible! We loved exploring the grounds and the building!

This is where you eat breakfast! LOVED it!

The library and it's secret staircase!

Harrison likes to smell the flowers. And by smell, I mean blow on the flowers.

The room that inspired the ball room from the film. Laila and I enjoyed many curtsies in here.

The famous gazebo from the movie was left on the property after filming. But, because so many were trespassing onto the property and even swimming across the lake to get to it, they moved it to a public park. haha! But the property does still have this iconic swing. We had fun!

Oh that gate!

Our best Von Trapp impression. Haha!

After lunch that day, we ran through the rain to meet up with our Sound of Music tour! I think we were supposed to be on a large bus, but because we had our two little kids, they put us in a private van with our own tour guide! It ended up being even more awesome than I imagined! Thanks to the smallness of our group, the weather, and the fact that we had already seen the horse gate, we were able to make our tour more personal and see some other things.

Michael was with the sleeping kids in the van so I made our tour guide take this picture for me. Can't tell you how much I wish stupid people didn't break their legs in this gazebo which made them lock it up now. Come on people! It was still awesome to be at the actual gazebo!

This is the actual Von Trapp villa. It's kind of tucked into some neighborhoods outside of town so film crews couldn't really get there which is why they switched locations. The Villa is also a hotel now in case you want to stay at their actual home!

We loved seeing all the other sites from the movie and little behind the scenes tid bits!