The Team

The Team

Monday, 13 August 2012

Carl Pointer - 12 Aug 2012



Today we visited the Kehlsteinhaus AKA "The Eagle′s Nest", which is the famous mountain retreat of Adolf Hitler in the mountains of Berchtesgaden. Today, the Kehlsteinhaus is a memorial site and attracts thousands of visitors every year - the Eagle′s Nest has developed from a prestige object of allied bombings to Berchtesgaden′s primary attraction. Day-trips to the Kehlsteinhaus from Salzburg are easy and very popular. Keep in mind though, that the Eagle′s Nest is very crowded and the bus services that take tourists up to the Kehlsteineinhaus area are around 15.50Euros.
The Eagle′s Nest had been designed by Martin Bohrmann, over a 13 month period! A lovely present of the Nazi party for Hitler′s 50th birthday in 1939. It is situated on a ridge at the top of the Kehlstein mountain 1,834 m (6,017 ft).
The Kehlsteinhaus was a bit of a treasure trove: It cost the party an impressive 30 Million Reichsmark, approximately 150 Million Euros in today′s value. Shame he only visited the place around 10 times haha! :/
Breathtaking views, leaving you speechless! Words cannot possibly describe the views! You have to actually be there ;)
If your planning on going to The Eagles Nest...

1. Head for Obersalzburg, Park your car and look for signs directing you to purchase bus tickets.
2. Purchase your bus tickets (they accept credit cards) and then go to specified area to wait for a bus. Busses run fairly regularly and when we arrived, about 9:30 AM, there were no lines.
3. When you exit the bus at Eagle's Nest, you must then stand in another line to have your bus ticket stamped with a "return time". We arrived about 10:00 AM at the top and chose 12:15. While they suggested about 2 hours for your stay, unless you plan to have lunch, 1 1/2 hours should be more than enough time for your visit.
4. To access the house on top of Eagle's Nest, you can either take an elevator or walk up a path. When we arrived there was no wait for the elevator. You should take the elevator at least once, (up or down) just for the experience.
5. At the top, we thought there was going to be an opportunity to purchase tickets for an english tour, as the women selling bus tickets stated, but in fact, there are no tours available once you arrive at the top. Evidently if you want a tour of the area, you need to arrange this ahead of time in town.  Also, all of the information written on the various displays at the house are written only in German. Perhaps purchasing a book in English at the gift shop, would provide you with the overview you might like. After looking at the building, which is now a restaurant and gift shop, make sure to wander around the pathways outside the house leading up a bit, to experience some amazing views. Thankfully it was a B E A U-tiful day and there were no clouds...What a lovely change to our chilled out mundane weekends! :D

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