It was cheesy, I admit it. There we were, joyfully circling the same fountain that Julie Andrews and the actor-versions of the von Trapp children skirted as they sang “Do, a deer, a female deer.” We ran through the same arbor, flinging our arms as they had done. We watched tourists hopping up the steps from the Mirabel Garden, voicing the line: “When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything!” Viewed today as a kids’ tune, this masterful song marked the return of music into the von Trapp children’s lives, empowering them unbeknownst for difficulties that lay ahead.

Salzburg is alive with the sound of music. All you have to do is note the world-famous summer Salzburg Festival, now in its 102nd year. Here Mozart was born—not a bad credential for a city to have. An admirable string of forgotten composers made good careers in Salzburg too, including Mozart’s father Leopold, a master pedagogue whose treatise on playing the violin still matters today.

Then there are more things Salzburg can boast: her extensive castle fortress and sumptuous Archbishop’s place, a string of glorious churches, and the maze of colorful Renaissance and Baroque buildings that fill Old Town. Their carved façades and historic brass and iron signage dazzle the passerby.

Ordinarily, these kinds of things shape our experience when our Smithsonian groups visit Salzburg. Of course, they impressed us this time, too. Still, a different kind of magic fell over over this tour: the spirit of The Sound of Music.

It all started when my colleague, our clever, engaging Travel Director Raffaele Marmo, popped the film into the DVD system of our luxurious Mercedes coach en route from Zermatt to Salzburg. At first, he made a joke of it, remarking on the American penchant for this sentimental musical. He groaned and others did too.

But a funny thing happened (as usually does with great music). Within a song or two, nearly everyone (Raffaele included) was caught by the film’s power. We weren’t really watching it, per se. Instead, the images flashing on the little screens served as tender touchpoints while we gazed in wonder at the Alpen landscape. The Sound of Music, whose sequences most know by heart, offered us a story and musical score to accompany the beauty surrounding us.

Alas, the drive wasn’t quite long enough to finish the film. We were just shy of the wedding as we arrived at our hotel. “Could we sit in the bus and watch at least the wedding?” someone asked. This lady was serious (and I would have stayed!). Unfortunately, tour busses are given but a few minutes to unload, so the film’s conclusion had to wait for two days until we rode back from Berchtesgaden.

What a poignant drive that was. We had risen early to travel to Berchtesgaden—a charming town still tainted by Hitler’s legacy. There, we took the treacherous road (in special buses) to the insanely placed Eagle’s Nest where, at 6,017 feet, Hitler demanded a stone “Tea House” (Kehlsteinhaus) be built. The project was completed rapidly with terrible personal and financial cost. As it turned out, Hitler used this place officially only 14 times, yet here he planned some of his most evil actions.

Ironically, the Eagle’s Nest today is something of a tourist trap. Enormous numbers of people make their way up the dangerous road (inaccessible during winter). They walk, as we did, through a tomb-like tunnel and await Hitler’s famous brass elevator, resplendent with leather and glass, to whisk them up to the top. There, either a blanket of clouds or a stunning view awaits, depending on the moment-to-moment pattern of the clouds.

We had booked the first transfer to the top. Blinded by mountain fog, shivering at the cold winds, we were the first folks to pile into the curious restaurant that now fills Hitler’s Tea Room. All traces of Hitler’s era are removed, so one simply sits and takes a coffee or hot chocolate, remembering, or trying to forget, where one is.

When we descended, notably low in spirit, the area was crowded with tourists awaiting the ride up. A fabulous lunch a few kilometers away in a Gasthaus glued to the side of a mountain, plus a tour of Berchtesgaden’s historical center revived us. Then, on the way back to Salzburg, people asked to finish the film. And so we did. I cannot say for certain, but it seemed to me that the final scenes of the story reverberated inordinately against our grim impressions garnered on that austere mountain top.

Austrians aren’t very fond of The Sound of Music. Actually, until recently, most knew little about it. Then, around 300,000 visitors a year started coming to Salzburg to follow in Julie Andrew’s footsteps. With those kinds of numbers, the Austrian tourist industry had to take the musical into account.

You and I may not mind the inaccuracies of the film’s chronology, but many Austrians do. For one, the final glorious scene (where the family traipses across the mountains to freedom) simply did not happen. The von Trapps, rather, took a train from Salzburg to Italy (sorry). But be glad about that train. Had they succeeded in crossing the mountainous pass, they would have dropped into Germany, right in a town under Hitler’s control.

Other things are wrong about the film too, although the basic story line is true. But the inaccuracies matter little when placed against that glorious score by Rodgers and Hammerstein! We would be impoverished by the absence of any of those songs. Just consider “Climb Every Mountain”: how many people has it touched across the globe? How many have shed a tiny tear to “Edelweiss”? How many have smiled at “You are Sixteen, Going on Seventeen”? And, as the years pass, who doesn’t consider the deeper meaning of that line “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good”?

Certain moments on tours, when disparate strands of experiences weave a poignant tapestry, may not fit into travel brochures. But these are the moments that stay on our hearts, long after we’ve forgotten the dates and names, or sequence of cities. If we look, we can often find artistic treasures like The Sound of Music that encapsulate and elevate our experiences, whether through poetry or drama, painting or sculpture, song or dance. And it doesn’t happen only in glamourous spots like Salzburg or Paris. It can happen in our own backyards, for this much is true: When you know the notes to sing, you can face most anything.