Our last full day in Europe - Saturday, August 4

Today was our last day in Europe and we took it easy. We slept in and relaxed. We also packed up. We were invited to a neighbors' house - Clemens and Astrid - for afternoon tea. Their property is just across the street from the farm and they have a great view of the nearby lakes and mountains. After, we went into Eggstatt for dinner. There was a local festival going on - called Eggstatt Dorffest 2007. There were many bands and lots of food - both Bavarian and non-Bavarian (Italian). The girls rode horses and played games (like tug-o-war) and we had a great time.

In one of the pictures you'll see a Maypole. Most towns have one. They are made by cutting down a pine tree from the forest and then decorating it with symbols and pictures of what the people from that town/village do for a livelihood.

Friday in Bavaria

On Friday we went back to the Berchtesgaden area. We got tickets for the Salzbergwerk Salt Mines and then walked around the town until it was time for our salt mine tour.

We saw some historic areas of Berchtesgaden (some made famous by pictures of U.S. soldiers coming into the town in 1945).

We had a nice lunch and then we went to the salt mine. We dressed in "protective gear" and then took a train 1/2 mile into the mountain. We rode wooden slides from level to another and took a boat across an underground salt lake. The kids enjoyed it. We thought it was a little cheesy. They tried to make the extraction more exciting than it is in real life.

We drove into Salzberg afterwards for dinner and met a friend, Allen Rudolph. Alan and I were in the same group of 20 teachers last year in Japan. We had dinner with him and his girlfriend, Kim. He bought a BMW with European delivery and is traveling around for two weeks. It was great to see him again.

Berchtesgadener Land

We drove to Berchtesgaden and Obersalzberg on Thursday. We got a late start (hey, it's a vacation - we should be able to sleep in - right?) and also ran into a traffic jam on the autobahn caused by a motorcycle-car accident. We went to the Berchtesgaden visitor center and then drove to Obersalzberg to head up to the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest). The Eagle's Nest is located on top of the Kehlstein Mountain at a height of 6,017 feet. It was the idea of Martin Bormann to build it as a gift for Hitler's 50th birthday. Six people died building the road up to Eagle's Nest. It took 13 months to build and goes up 2,300 feet in four miles.

We took the dizzying ride up to Eagle's Nest, took some pictures, and then road the brass elevator up another 406 feet to the actual building. Because the road is too dangerous to drive in the winter, Eagle's Nest is only open from mid-May through the end of October.

Hitler only visited Eagle's Nest just over a dozen times. The views were impressive. While we were up there, a thunderstorm rolled in, visibility quickly dropped, and it started POURING! We left and went to the Hotel Zum Turken (see below).

Obersalzberg was a little village at the base of the Kehlstein Mountain where Hitler's Berghof was located. Hitler started visiting the area in 1923 (before he was imprisoned after his failed coup). After he was released, he started renting a house there and wrote a lot of Mein Kampf there. In 1933 he stopped renting and bought a house in Obersalzberg (which became the Berghof). Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring and Hitler's deputy chief of staff, Martin Bormann.

On April 25, 1945 the RAF bombed Obersalzberg. 318 bombers spent an hour and a half pulverizing the area. Eagle's Nest was the only building that wasn't touched. There were a few other buildings that were not completely destroyed. From the 1950s until the mid-1990s, Obersalzberg became a resort for the US army. A few of the buildings not horribly damaged were fixed and used. The only privately owned building that survived (and still survives today) is the Hotel Zum Turken.

We visited the underground bunkers underneath the hotel. Hitler and other Nazi leaders had them built. They are dark, damp, and dank now. Then, they were warm and nicely furnished.

It was a pretty amazing day for two history buffs and their kids.

We drove around and found a little restaurant and hotel in the middle of nowhere. We decided to stop for dinner. It was all locals and no one spoke English. The food was fantastic.

(* Addendum - just found out today (August 7) that the restaurant we went to - Alpenwirtschaft Vorderbrand - was where Adolf Hitler's sister - Paula Wolf - lived after the war. She was interviewed there about their childhood in 1946. Freaky that we found this place on our own without knowing the connection.)

Wednesday in Bavaria

On Wednesday we drove to Neuschwanstein Castle (about 2 1/2 hours drive) for a tour I had booked in advance. It was a long drive, but the castle was worth it. It was very cool to see with my own eyes a castle I've seen in pictures hundreds of times. After, we went to the Tegelbergbahn - a metal luge course near the castle where our sleds were pulled up on chains and then we flew down on them - twisting and turning - to the bottom of the hill.

Tuesday in Bavaria

On Tuesday we went to Salzburg and saw many of the sites where the Sound of Music was filmed. The Salzburg Music Festival also was going on and music was playing throughout the city. We went up to the fortress overlooking the city and we also saw Mozart's birthplace as well. We struck up a nice conversation with Daniel Stenway, an excellent piano player whose CD we purchased. While talking to him, we ran into a woman named Elizabeth who helped clean up the Salzburg Cathedral after it was bombed (by accident) during World War II. She told us some very interesting stories about what happened to her and her family during the war. She is also very concerned about the rise of neo-Nazism in Germany and Europe.

The Fischer Farm

Here are a few pictures of the farm house and some of its inhabitants. One picture shows the view from our balcony.

Monday in Bavaria

We slept in and relaxed on Monday in our lovely apartment at the Fisher farm (Wolfeicherhof). The Fishers are lovely. We gather that most guests are Germans and Austrians getting away from the city, so no one speaks much English. The Fishers have neighbors that speak English quite well and have been very helpful in helping us communicate with each other.

This is a working farm with "farm holiday apartments" added on to the property to supplement their farm income. Many farmers around this area have done the same thing. They have about 20 milking cows, pigs, horses, rabbits, a guinea pig, nine cats, etc.... It's also a great location - right in between Munich and Salzburg.

We are staying right near a large body of water known as the "Bavarian Sea." It's called the Chiemsee. There are several islands in the lake. One of them is called Herrenchiemsee and we took a ferry there this afternoon. King Ludwig II of Bavaria acquired the land in 1873 and built a palace modelled on Versailles. The palace was still incomplete when he died in 1886 and he only stayed in it ten days.

Having been to Versailles, it's pretty impressive to see what Ludwig built. He built all of his castles with his family's money (not Bavaria's) and pretty much ruined his family. He was enamored with Louis XIV - The Sun King - and built the Royal Palace of Herrenchiemsee as a homage to him (two hundred years after he died). It's such a good copy that people from Versailles visited often after the French Revolution to make sure the rebuilding they did was correct.

Another cool thing about the island is that the Constitutional Assembly met there in 1948 in the former monastery (Old Palace) to prepare the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).

We saw a giant banana slug as we walked up to the palace.

After our tour, we ate dinner at a nice restaurant on the island.