Mondsee in the Austrian Lake District

If you've ever watched the opening scene to "The Sound of Music," you know Austria is a beautiful country...or at least it was at the time they made that movie.

Guess what?

It still is.

Flying in from Vienna to Prague revealed a land surprisingly dominated by fields and forests, interspersed with villages and small towns.

As in America, most of the population clusters in cities, with Vienna accounting for 22% of the population of Austria, according to our guide.

Our port for the day was Linz, the third largest city in Austria with almost 200,000 residents, gateway to Salzburg, which surprisingly has only about 150,000.

There were several potential excursions, including one to Cesky Krumlov, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but we wanted to visit the birthplace of Mozart.

We selected the all-day Salzburg Tour, which included a stop at Mondsee, where the Abbey from the wedding scene in "The Sound of Music" sits amid this quaint village of 3,300 residents beside a placid lake that shares the same name.

Interestingly, our guide said that most people in Austria haven't watched "The Sound of Music," which a quick show of hands on our bus showed everyone but one person on our bus had seen at least once.

Mondsee turned out to be the highlight of the day for us not because of its connection to the Julie Andrews movie but because of its natural beauty and serenity.

Mondsee Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded in the year 748.

                                                       

Interior of Basilica St. Michael (historically Mondsee Abbey), site of wedding scene from "The Sound of Music."