Chris' Excellent Adventures: Berechtsgaden, Germany

Date: October 1995
Trip: Germany, Czech Republic, Austria
Place: Berechtsgaden, Bavaria, Germany (outside Salzburg, Austria)
Traveling With: Dawn S from Oak Creek, WI
Photos: (1) Dawn and I at Berechtsgaden (Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" Retreat) with Austria in the background, (2) The view of Germany from Eagle's Nest (3) Me admiring the awesomeness of the Bavarian Alps.

Berechtsgaden conjures up mixed emotions. On one hand, it was the mountaintop getaway of one of history's most notorious and despised figures. On the other, it is a place of immense beauty, perched high in the Bavarian Alps in Germany just outside the Austrian border.


This is the place Doug wanted to visit very badly while we were touring Germany five months 5 months earlier, but after several days of driving already, it seemed a bit out of the way and there were other, more interesting places to see yet. But when Dawn and I ran out of things to do after several days in Salzburg, it was so close, we had to visit.

We drove for about a half hour out of Salzburg into Germany to get to Berechtsgaden. Being October, the fall colors were great. Once we arrived in Berechtsgaden, we discovered the only way to get up to the retreat was by bus tour. The place was a mob scene, which attests to its popularity. When you got on the bus, you quickly discovered why you were not allowed to drive up on your own. The road leading up to Eagle's Nest is a very steep grade that winds and winds forever up to the top of the mountain. When buses come at each other, one has to pull over and let the other pass. Sometimes you get really close to the edge, which is a steep drop-off of hundreds of feet--straight down. Once you get to the top, you get off the bus and walk through a long tunnel that the Nazis bored into the mountain underneath the summit. It was suggested that this is where Hitler, Eva and his guards could hide if they came under attack. At the end of the tunnel, you take an elevator up to the house where Hitler lived and out onto the summit where you can explore and admire the scenery. Oddly, the house is now a restaurant. It should really have been turned into a museum. The scenery alone was worth the trip. Afterwards, we drove back to Salzburg (Mozart's hometown) where we did some last minute sightseeing. The next day, we drove 10 hours back to Brussels, Belgium where I was living at the time. I always hate when vacations end. Maybe that's why I look so somber in these pictures.