The Grammar School at Leeds' BLOG

Day 10 Salzburg and Hellbrunn Palace

‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on Salzburg’. To state that it is ‘persisting’ down is an understatement - I got wetter going to the coach than I did in the bathroom shower - not a good omen for a stroll aroung Salzburg. Dodging the showers was today’s favourite game. Fortunately most of the ‘walkabout’ was in dry (dryish) conditions. First stop was the cathedral and the famous statue in Mozartplatz. Time for a group photoshoot - unfortunately 20 other groups had the same idea so it was a case of overwhelming numbers wins the day - our 98 easily won.

Winding our way through the myriad of alleyways we arrived at the birthplace of Mozart, totally
surrouded with tourists.If you stayed still for more than a nanosecond you ended up in a Japanese photoshoot. The fact we had ‘music’ written on our hoodies elevated us to distant relatives of Mozart - you say music tour - click-, from England - click- Leeds -click- no kidding - click!
Next stop the Mirabell gardens - ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music and 89 girls re-enacting
the travails of the von Trapp family.’ Once the compulsory ‘Do, ray, mi’ renditions were over we set out for some retail therapy concentrating on the famous Austrian chocolates, Mozart memorabilia and pretzels the size of a dustbin lid.

And so to the final concert of the tour at the  Hellbrunn Palace in front of the famous Pavillion.  As we stepped from the coaches the heavens opened. No matter! These girls are immune to rain by now and perform beautifully, shrouded in hoodies, raincoats and umbrellas. Even the staff master a rendition of ‘Singing in the rain’ with yours truly attempting a Fred Astaire impersonation with twirling umbrella (don’t give up the day job!). Several coachloads of tourists provide a mobile audience. They came to see the world famous pavillion only to be confronted with the ‘Sound of Music’ Leeds version. As the last notes of Rythm of Life resonated off the pavillion walls we packed away the piano (raindrops and all) for the last time and bade a musical farewell to Austria.

Two functions remained, ‘packing’ and ‘disco’.  As you can imagine the staff completed the first task in the same time as the girls took to try on every item in their wardrobe to identify the ‘exact’
combination for the evening. Never have so many worn so little to such great effect. Meanwhile
back in the boys’ room it was a quick comb of the eyebrows and  we were off to strut our stuff John Travolta style in the dining room. Fortunately no one had yet arrived to witnes the gyrations and general perambulations so we contented ourselve with sitting in a corner sipping orange juice - brings back memories. Well here come the professionals - stand well back! Guten nacht!