SALZBURG: 

Home sweet home: Maria von Trapp at her family house

Maria von Trapp has taken a trip down memory lane to see her old family home just before it opens as a  hotel.

Staying in the house for the first time since the von Trapps fled the Nazi regime in the l1930s has been a deeply moving experience for the daughter of Baron von Trapp, whose story was made famous by the film Sound of Music. "Our whole life is in here, in this house," said Maria (94).

Von Trapp smiles as she recalls a memory, "My sister built herself a tree house... we loved to climb the trees," she said. The family always sang and played instruments together, and having lost all their fortune in the throes of the world economic crisis, their musical talent proved a saviour.

An opera singer heard the children sing in the park and entered them for a competition. Soon the von Trapps started to tour Europe and the US as a family choir. The villa in Salzburg was taken over by Nazi security chief Heinrich Himmler, who used it as a home close to the Austrian Alps.

After the war, a missionary order took over the home, agreeing to relinquish it for use as a hotel.