Berchtesgaden (Eagle's Nest)

The day after Salzburg, we headed out to Berchtesgaden.  It was not a very highly publicized place.  It's the 3rd highest peak in Germany and has a salt mine at it's base.  It was a very popular vacation spot for the German and Austrian royals starting in the 1100s.  It also boasts a glacial lake named Konigssee.  You can see the lake from the top of the peak.  It's also famous for being where Hitler built an entire town for himself and his officers and called it the Eagle's Nest.  There were schools, work buildings, his own private home and the main building where he met with and planned with his high ups and held photo shoots for publicity.  It was bombed near the end of the war and they missed.  All of the buildings were destroyed or taken down by the Americans after the war except the main building.  The Germans do not talk about it as being part of their Nazi history.  They down play it as much as possible for fear of it being a big attraction site to those that supported him.  I think that's very noble.  The peaks surrounding the building are absolutely gorgeous.  The thing about Germany is, you wake up and it's cloudy and rainy... by 2 pm it's better, but if you are higher up in altitude it mostly stays cloudy. 

These two pictures of Jer kind of show how cloudy it was while we were there.  You couldn't see 5 feet away really.  It's kind of neat to be in the clouds though.  Janelle and I drove through clouds when we were in Ecuador in 2005.  That was really fun.  We got some hot cocoa and waited to see if there would be any breaks in the clouds.  We got to see the lake and some very pretty views as clouds broke. 

They had specially made Volkswagon buses for the steep inclines and narrow roads.  Jer and a few others in our group were a little intimidated by the very steep drop offs next to the roads.  I felt very safe.  The steep drop offs in Ecuador have no safeties built in... on this one, they had a rock barrier and the buses were specially built.

These two pictures were taken while we were waiting for the elevator.  They dug a tunnel into the mountain and then drilled an elevator shaft down from the building. 

These crows were funny.  As soon as our snacks came out, they hopped right up to get their share.

This is the tunnel where the bus drops you off.

This hallway is the only mention of Hitler.  They have a timeline of when things were built, who he was associating with and the process of building the town that was destroyed.