Day 190: Wednesday 24 September – Bavaria: The Eagle’s Nest, by Ken

As usual, it was still dark when we got up, from what little we could see we were surrounded by a heavy mist . The outside temperature read just 1°. Dawn confirmed there was indeed a heavy mist filling the valley, it felt cold and damp outside.

Jane took Smarty to visit McDonalds for a coffee, but mainly to use their wi-fi. While she was gone I could see the sky above Mabel’s skylight changing colour from grey through a much lighter grey which then started to clear and give glimpses of blue sky above. It had all the makings of a fine autumn day.

It was just after 10:00 when we set off in Smarty. By then the mist had gone and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. We drove through Berchtesgaden and then took the road up to Obersalzberg where we parked in the car park for the Eagle’s Nest situated several hundred metres above us. Jane was worried it might be cold on the mountain and decided to take her puffer jacket, I went for my light waterproof, just to keep the wind out.

On The Road To Berchtesgaden

We visited a souvenir shop near the car park. Jane was keen to buy an ornately decorated stein as a souvenir, but it was €70, far too much to spend on an ornament.

The only way of reaching the Eagle’s Nest is to take a bus from the parking area at Obersalzberg. We walked over to the bus terminus to buy tickets, four or five buses were waiting there. A timetable showed buses ran every 25 minutes. With typical German efficiency our bus ticket not only showed the number of the bus we should take, but also its departure time. We were allotted Bus No 2 departing at 11:50. That was over 40 minutes away, there was some real warmth in the day and we used up some of that time walking back to Smarty to leave our jackets there.

Our very smart red Mercedes bus set a cracking pace as it climbed the steep road up the Kehistein mountain. The road was just wide enough for the bus and on the way up we passed three or four buses that had been coming down stopped in a passing place. A recorded message told us the journey was 7km, it climbed 800 metres and would take approximately 20 minutes. We would be passing through seven tunnels and around just one hairpin bend. It also asked that we booked the time of our return trip when we left the bus. The recommendation was two hours at the Eagle’s Nest would be about right. More German efficiency.

Initially the road climbed through a pine forest. Once above the tree line we had magnificent views down into the valley below. To the south we could see Lake Königsee and to the north the valley opened out to a broad plain with Salzberg in the distance.

View From Bus On The Way Up To The Eagle's Nest

We left the bus at the turnaround at the top of the road. It was a lot cooler there, Jane immediately felt cold and wished she had brought her puffer jacket with her. We dutifully booked a 14:20 return trip. We then walked something over 100 metres along a granite block lined tunnel and turned sharp right into a circular domed area where we waited for a lift to take us up to the Eagle’s Nest itself. The lift was the original with walls and ceiling clad in brass, it took us up 130 metres to a hall where we had the choice of turning left and out onto the terrace, or right to the restaurant. We chose right and entered what had originally been the dining room beyond which was what had been the larger reception hall.

We sat in the dining room. Our waiter was on Ritilin, or something similar. He greeted us as he dashed pass towards the kitchen, emerged a few seconds later with dishes rushing past again to deliver them. Then he was back for our drinks order which he returned with in a few seconds before dashing off to seat some new arrivals. ‘Frenetic‘ is about the only way of describing him. He was constantly on the move taking and delivering orders, totting up bills in his head, whipping out change, clearing tables, making sure people were happy with their meals and generally being a good waiter. Our meals arrived within just a few minutes of placing our orders, Jane’s roast pork – three large slices about 10mm thick, a potato dumpling and sauerkraut. My home made potato soup arrived with what looked like a willy poking out of the liquid. Sometime afterwards the waiter passed by at speed asking if everything was OK but was well out of earshot by the time we could respond, he just never stopped. When we asked for the bill, he asked what we had ordered, totted the prices up in his head and scribbled the total on a piece of paper saying “That includes tax, the tip is up to you” and was gone again.

Eagle's Nest Dining Room

Soup And Willy For Lunch

We walked outside onto the terrace which was packed with tables filled by people eating lunch in the sunshine. Jane was sorry we hadn’t eaten out there, but she had felt cold when we got off the bus. We walked up a path that took us to the summit of Mount Kehistein stopping numerous times along the way to take in the views of the valley below and the mountains above capped with a light dusting of snow. By the time we had covered just part of the way to the summit Jane was feeling hot and had to take her Icebreaker off.

Looking North - Bodensee Just Visible Middle Left

Busy Sky Over The Eagle's Nest

Looking East Valley Opening Up Towards Salzburg

Looking Down Towards The Eagle's Nest

There were several black birds gliding and soaring around us. I was pretty convinced they were eagles, Jane thought they were crows. Some research is needed to find out what they were, but we noticed signs for Black Eagle beer on our way back to the Eagle’s nest. We stopped at a stall where I bought a book documenting the history of the Eagle’s nest.

Black Eagle?

The 14:20 bus was actually 5 buses that left in convoy spot on time. Back at Obersalzberg we walked down to ‘Dokumentation Obersalzberg’ a museum dealing with the history of Obersalzberg and National Socialism. The captions to the very good displays were all in German and, consequently, we understood little of them. However, at various points around the museum were multi-lingual pamphlets with selected translations of what we were seeing.

Obersalzberg was a mountain village that had been popular with tourists from the second half of the 19^th century onwards. Hitler holidayed there from 1923. In 1928 he lived in a rented house in the village which he purchased in 1933. Between then and 1936 it was enlarged significantly and named the Berghof.

Bormann set about driving out the original inhabitants of the area, initially by purchasing their properties, but subsequently by threatening them and their families with imprisonment in concentration camps if they didn’t sign to say they had given up their property voluntarily. Indeed, one resident spent 2 years in Dachau.  Bormann created the ‘Führersperrgebeit’ (the Führer’s off-limits area) fencing off a large area of the mountainside to keep intruders out. It was the second seat of government outside Berlin, a place where important political decisions were made and a backdrop for propaganda. Between 1943 and 1945 the SS constructed an elaborate bunker complex fearing the area would be where the Third Reich’s last stand would take place.

Inter-alia, the museum covered the key figures in Hitler’s regime, genocide, resistance and the Second World War in big picture terms. The photographs of concentration camp victims and mass executions were particularly harrowing. There was some good stuff on Churchill’s May 1940 speech “I have nothing to offer but blood, tears, toil and sweat” and “You ask what is our aim: I can answer with one word: Victory, Victory at all costs, Victory in spite of all terrors, Victory however long and hard the road might be”. Stirring stuff and we could almost hear him speaking.

There were some very good maps of Europe dealing with the chronology of the war starting with Germany expanding in all directions followed by the Russians stopping the advance on Moscow and then driving German troops back. As other fronts opened up, so Germany’s conquests were liberated and, finally, of course, Germany was left with less than it started with.

Next we visited the bunker complex over which the museum had been built. It was an enormous undertaking on a number of levels of which only the upper was open to the public. Designed to withstand a siege, it had all the facilities required to live underground for a long while, including an early example of air conditioning. One of the bunker’s rooms played a video of contemporary footage produced in WWII. It started with the rise of Hitler and Germany’s early successes including its advances on Poland, Russia, etc. and the Blitz but soon moved on to the darker side, particularly the persecution of Jews followed by the turning of the tide as the allies gained the upper hand. It was another quite harrowing feature, but well balanced.

Bunker Corridor

Another Bunker Corridor

The last exhibit we visited in the museum was another video, this one featured eye-witness accounts of life in Ubersalzberg before, during and after the Nazis. It had clearly been a happy place where farmers eked out a living, but that all changed when Hitler moved there attracting lots of visitors wanting to catch a glimpse of the Fuhrer. After that there were first hand accounts of Bormann clearing the residents out and turning the mountain into a Nazi enclave. Some of the speakers spoke, understandably, with real feeling about that. The video finished with an account of the 1945 RAF raid that destroyed virtually everything in the area except the Eagle’s Nest. We could have stayed longer in the museum, but had to leave when it closed at 17:00.

Our plan had been to fit in a visit somewhere else, but we hadn’t appreciated how much of the day the Eagle’s Nest and museum would take. We set a course back to Mabel, dropping in to a Tanglemann supermarket on the way for supplies. It was very impressive, particularly the fruit and veg which looked perfect.

We stopped off at MccDonalds close to the camping ground to use their free wi-fi to check email, etc. The deposit for our accommodation in Goa that we transferred through internet banking a couple of weeks ago, hadn’t reached the account in Goa. The recipient seemed pretty laid back about it suggesting such things take time in India. We agreed to leave things until the beginning of next week when I would get BNZ to trace the payment if it hadn’t turned up by then.

After our lunch out we had a light evening meal of toast made from a new loaf even denser than that we bought in Austria on Monday with dips and cheese.