It was where Julie Andrews sang The Hills Are Alive at the opening scene and where the family climbed the mountain on their escape to Switzerland at the end of the film.

The Untersberg rises at the rim of the Northern Limestone Alps, immediately at the Salzburg Basin and the broad Salzach Valley.

About two-thirds of the area, including the Berchtesgaden Hochthron peak, is located in Germany, while the northernmost steep edge above Salzburg belongs to Austria.

Within it, the Upper Cretaceous Gosau Group is the source of a pale cream, rose to gray yellow, massive and very dense limestone known as the Untersberg Marble.

First mentioned as Vndarnsperch ("Noon Mountain") in a 1306 deed issued by the Salzburg archbishops, the prominent spur has been the subject of numerous myths and legends.

When Frederick leaves the mountain, there will be no further Holy Roman Emperor and the last great battle of humankind will be fought at the pear tree on the Walserfeld, a pasture near Wals, west of Salzburg.

Through Rotterdam and London, marble shipping was directed toward the East and West Indies and exported at the rate of 60,000 to 80,000 (and sometimes as high as 100,000) pounds per year.

As late as the 1850s, the Almbach valley had 40 ball mills with another 90 in the surrounding region, worked mainly by poor mountain farmers.

The lower fixed grinding stones are made of hard sandstone and the upper turntables from beech wood.