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It's strange isn't it that one of the most popular visitor attractions in Germany can remind us of such a shocking history in the beautiful Bavarian mountain region where the 'Kehlsteinhaus' (or Eagles Nest as some know it) is located. Built for Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday this magnificent building is literally perched on top of the Kehlstein Mountain. Getting there is also exciting as you climb up a very step road to Obersalzburg where there is a bus terminus and visitor centre. Here you buy your tickets (Bradley goes free) and hop on one of 5 busses that then all leave in convoy to take you up the most precarious bus ride we have ever been on with only a single track and overhanging hairpins. You arrive at a turning point and immediately walk into a tunnel for about 124 metres before arriving at the original lift all decorated in lovely wood and brass to take you very fast up 400 feet inside the mountain. If that hasn't amazed you at the top you walk out onto a viewing gallery where it really does take your breath away, all you can hear from the many tourists around are all the oooh's and aaahh's. The building was for Hitler to entertain people and maybe discuss or make some of his dreadful plans for domination and its not as big as you think. At the fall of the 3rd Reich, Obersalzburg was virtually distroyed and occupied by the allies but the Eagles Nest Tea House as it became known as at the top was left alone. The Americans well and truly captured the area and opened the local ski resorts and Eagles Nest for their own use and most of the allied troops used it for recreation at the end of the war and for sometime after.
After another of our high altitude meals (How they get all the fine foods and beers up that high beats me) we then booked our return bus and headed back down the mountain. We drove out of Germany again back into Austria and have found a little campsite in Salzburg only 3km from the centre where we hope to go in and visit some of Mozart's history on Friday. Our renditions of 'The Hills are alive with the sound of music' whilst driving are beginning to effect Bradley as he has started covering his ears!….
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