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Berchtesgaden, Germany

To view the Eagles nest we splurged and took a tour. I write that as a kiwi joke as our choices are not primarily focused on the dollar value alone, but we also consider value for money, convenience, our time schedule, and do it yourself ability and adventure level. This tour won it on do-ability and time.

The Eagles Nest was built for Hitler as a gift for his 50th birthday, as a meeting head quarters come tea house 6000 ft high on a mountain near Berchtesgarden, Bavaria. Whilst in Germany, locality wise it is closer to Salzburg, Austria than other major German cities being around 40km away. Hitler had a house on the foot hills there, as well as Goering and a couple of others. It is very scenic like the rest of the Bavarian alpine region and about 11 kms away is a lake called Konig See which is reportedly Germany’s cleanest.

Our tour departure point was a five minute walk up the road at Mirabell park and the coach was a lovely big modern comfortable air conditioned one (yeah) although today was the day the weather forecast said it would change to a mere 26 degrees. Walter our tour guide was excellent, a gentleman of quite senior years, good health, excellent English and fantastic dry and witty sense of humour. He had been doing the tour for a long time and was very committed to all aspects of customer service.

It was a pleasant drive to Berchtesgarden with lots of trees and a delightful river that is a cross between mint and aqua colour and a tiny bit cloudy. Walter educated the likes of me by explaining that this colour is due to snow melt and as summer progresses it becomes crystal clear. I find the current colour very appealing and now know why the water in Bavaria is freezing – it is snow slushy.

Two thirds of the way up the mountain we changed buses to a specially geared one that could manage the 22% gradient, and the last 6 kms at 2600 ft. The road has a few tunnells and is only 13ft wide and considered an engineering feat for its day. Almost needless to say that the view down to the green and gold patchwork valley as the bus wound its way like a snake up the side of the sheer mountain road was superb and a little exhilarating.

When you are about 400 ft from the top you exit the bus and enter on foot a 400 ft long tunnel into the mountain to take a special lift up the middle to the Eagles Nest. This is also an example of precision German engineering – for example all the bricks were cut and numbered before being brought up and the whole tunnelling and lift shaft combination is complex (so I am told).

The lift fits 46 people jammed very close – German close as Walter says, and only takes 45 seconds to zoom to the top. It is lined in shiny brass and venetian glass which is polished to a mirror finish – apparently Hitler was claustrophobic and afraid of heights and that is why it was so shiny to ease the stress for him. It is believed he only visited it around 15 times as he hated it due to his afflictions. The lift was powered by a submarine engine originally and recently replaced with something else which I cant recall what – but not as good apparently.

When you reach the top you go through a restaurant to view the meeting rooms and the outside views. Its a bit of a climb to the top in the thin air and I had to pause and catch breath for the photos but well worth the effort. I wonder what it is about being high up and viewing down that is appealing to many humans unless of course you have vertigo or fear of heights – both I can relate to a little of course. Speaking of phobia’s we had a claustrophobic in the tunnel and lift on our tour and it was sobering to think I went through a stage similar but not as bad thankfully. I felt sorry for the lady freaking out but admired that she DID it; it takes a huge amount of courage to face that sort of fear.

There was a little cloud up the top which frustrated the view, but we still saw a lot and enjoyed our time. However, it was rather narrow up there and despite my braveness I was not too sorry to get back to wider and lower ground 🙂

We got a little time in Berchtesgarden for lunch before we headed back to Austria arriving around 2pm. My favourite Earth brand sandles died in Alsace so we took this opportunity to do our first ‘shopping’ since we have been on holiday! Its true – we have just been hard out sight seeing and not really shopped except a tiny bit on our short visit to Burano (IT). I managed to find a not too ugly pair of exercise sandles and Vernon got a haircut which he was in dire need of. Gone is the holiday blonde hair he was getting – yep called him Mr California, replaced with a short styly cut and moonshine silver appearing LOL.

We have just gone to eating simply as its pretty much Bavarian menu and quality here so no photos or exciting drool inducing notes on that. Tonight we got some small deli salads, rolls and hot bbq chicken from the supermarket for a picnic tea. We found a black or dark beer 500ml for 79 cents too and it was so good – sweet and soft not like stout at all.

On the way home we called into the train station to organise our tickets for tomorrows transfer to Hallstatt and the information guy asked us if we had seen the news – no – so he googled some images to show us on his screen. Gosh – flash floods and mudslides, a few evacutions and a lot of rubble in the small town square. Great – now we have a decision to make.

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