Bypassing Munich (the town of a late Oktoberfest), we drove over to Berchtesgaden and stopped by Seebruck for lunch sitting on the Chiemsee lake. A nice lake, but it was the standard menu, the day was sunny and pleasant, and the bees were in proliferation. We’ve had bees at almost all of our outdoor meals in Germany, but this particular meal was about to be battle between whether they liked German food more than we did. We were not particularly interested in playing this game, but eventually we did. (The bees won, though.)
We had an amazingly beautiful drive over to the Alps. The weather was clear, the leaves were falling as we were driving. Nature was delivering full Autumn glory. The entire region was pure eye candy. The German’s are holding out on us, keeping this scenery in their country.
In Berchtesgaden, of Hitler Nazi fame and also of National Forest fame, we split our time between the two topics. On the first day, we spent our time heading out in the mid-morning to Lake Konigsee and taking an electric boat to the far end. The day was amazing, the lake water super clear, the temperature was warm, the air smelled fantastic and the mountains were topped with snow. We went for a short walk on the far end and listened to one of the amusing aspects of the area, the cowbells. With a quiet autumn day, the valleys echoed with big cowbells around the necks of the grazing dairy cows. We spent most of a half day day walking a bit and generally oohing and ahhing over the vistas. We found we timed it well, as we boated back in the afternoon, the bus loads of tourists had descended on the boat docks. There were over 28 tour buses in the parking lot when we left! They must be making a killing on those boat rides.
On the next day, we headed up to the Kehlsteinhaus (a.k.a ‘The Eagles Nest’, a stupid name given to the place by American GI’s who probably couldn’t pronounce ‘Kehlstein’ and who also had no idea what an Eagle actually looks like). This was a 50th birthday present to Hitler from Martin Bormann, and is now a cafe, almost no interior design left reminding us of the building’s past. This building/restaurant is perched at the top of 6,000+ foot mountain. To get there, we took a bus up the steep mountain, on a road that has only one switchback, then we walked through a tunnel 406 feet directly into the mountain, then we took a huge brass elevator 406 feet straight up. The walk down the tunnel was the most outstanding feature. As we walked with soft-soled walking shoes, our feet clicked and clacked with a military echoing precision. It was a great sound and very eerie. Now, I’ve got to say, that this was one of the easiest mountain hikes that I’ve ever accomplished, walking from a bus 400 feet to an elevator, and wallah! I’m at the top of a sheer mountain cliff looking out over the Bavarian Alps. Nice.
So, having arrived at the top of the mountain, we pretty much had the Alp views to ourselves. We watched the fog that collected only over the lakes burn off to reveal the lake that we were on the day before. Then we followed the signs for the 45 minute hike. We could tell we were at elevation, but it elicited a few ‘Why don’t we go hiking more often?’s out of us, so even with snow covering a bit of the path here and there, we were very pleased.
The folks running this tourist destination have a weird system of catching a bus back down from the building, you need to get your ticket stamped with the time you are going to leave. So, without seeing the area, you need to decide just how interested you are going to be. We opted for a full 3 hours, figuring if we got too bored we could try to negotiate an earlier ride down. Our timing wasn’t too far off, we checked out the Eagle’s Nest building (I wasn’t overly impressed, except for the outrageous location of the building), contemplated the views and settled in for a beer at the cafe after our hard walk. This beer was, of course, at a shared table with chatty Germans surrounded by white haired beer drinkers, smoking and eating Currywurst and french fries….
Later in the day, rented the audioguide from the Dokumentation Obersalzberg and took four hours to listen to the unabridged look at the Third Reich and the response of the German people. It basically covered the cult of Hitler and how he gained power and how he controlled the media to win the hearts of the people, and stacked the judiciary to get programs in place that he desired. It was a moving presentation and well worth every bit of time that we spent there. At the end of the museum is a glimpse into the four miles of the underground bunker complex that linked many of the buildings in the area. An eerie place.
