In my last post I talked about the Austrian Alps tour that we took with Panoramic Tours and now its time to get into the specifics of each destination that we visited.
This will be more of a deep dive into the location itself, like I promised in the tour post. The first stop of the day was....
Also know as the Eagles Nest, the Kehlsteinhaus is located just 8 minutes away from the small town of Berchtesgaden Germany and roughly an hour from Salzburg Austria.
You can drive there and park in a large parking lot at the bottom of the mountain, but then you need to take a dedicated bus up to the top where the site is located. The road up the mountain is exclusively used by the sites busses, which run on a schedule. You can buy tickets for them at a kiosk in the parking lot or online using the sites website. Be prepared to wait in line when you arrive.
The Kehlsteinhaus is perched on top of a mountain 1820 meters above sea level and its also possible to hike your way up there. I saw several trail markers at a few different locations indicating that fact.
I also saw a few paths heading up the mountain here and there.
I also saw a sign that indicated that it was approximately a 3.5hr walk to town and 35 minute hike up to the site from the second parking lot.
The dedicated busses bring you to another parking lot 3/4 of the way up the mountain and from there you get your first glimps of the Eagles Nest sitting on the rock face. You can just make it out in the picture above.
Next you walk through a long tunnel to get to an elevator that brings you up to the building itself.
The elevator is actually located directly within the mountain and the tunnel was really quite long to get to it. It was built wide enough to fit a vehicle in but the driver would have to back up in reverse to get out of there. When Hitler visited the site the driver would drop him off at the elevator and then back out of the tunnel. Then he would turn around and head back into the tunnel in reverse and wait to pick up Hitler. This was so that Hitler would never himself have to leave the site in reverse.
The elevator was very large and had mirrored surfaces and gold plating inside. It was pretty cool in there, but we were packed into it so tightly, like sardines, so there was no way that I could take a photo of it. Our tour guy said that Hitler had it built that way in part because he was claustrophobic. The mirrors made it look bigger than it really was.
The building itself wasn't anything special to be honest. It was pretty unremarkable really, which is why I dont have any photos of the interior except one. It was probably something special back in its day, but now it just looks like an old, somewhat outdated, ski-lodge - not run down, just very simple and rustic. There was a restaurant up there and some tables to sit at but not really a whole lot to explore.
The most interesting thing that our tour guide explained to us was the red marble fire place. It was a gift to Hitler from Benito Mussolini. There were all of these little chips taken out of the marble from when the Allied soldiers took the location, back during WWII. Many soldiers had hammered out small chunks of the stone to take back home with them as a souvenir. I found that to be interesting.
There were large boards located up there in the building as well to give visitors information on the history and construction of the site. I didn't read any of them. Time was limited for us because we were on a tour and I was more interested in seeing the views around the site.
I knew that I'd just end up reading all of the same information later, once I started researching it for this post.
For instance, the site was built by the National Socialist party as a gift to Adolf Hitler for his birthday. The building was used to host government meetings during WWII. Workers came from Austria, Germany and Italy to construct the site and all were highly paid, supposedly. Source.
Something interesting of note came to us from our tour guide again and I read the same online; apparently Hitler was afraid of heights as well as being claustrophobic, so he didn't actually like visiting the location. He refused to stay the night there and there were never any beds installed. He only went to the site a little over a dozen times or so.
The views and scenery were the best part of the experience in my opinion. From up there you could see Kings Lake and the town of Berchtesgaden,
not to mention the forests and the Austrian Alps surrounding the area.
There was a man made path up there to take you higher up the mountain, for even better views of the surroundings and a birds eye view of the the Kehlsteinhaus (photos posted above previously).
The terrain up there was rocky and wide and open, so there was plenty of space to move around without the crowds getting in the way.
There looked to be a ton of trails up there that I wish I could have explored.
Sadly, there just wasn't enough time to wander too far from the group that day.
Nonetheless, we still hiked around up there for as long as we could to check things out.
As I mentioned in my previous post, we only had about 45 minutes at the site due to the tour schedule. I personally would have liked about double that time there to be able to read the information boards and also do some hiking in the area. The Kehlsteinhaus itself was a bit simple and plain in its interior and there wasn't a great deal going on with it other than its impressive elevator. Nonetheless I did really enjoy the experience and would recommend it to others. I would caveat it with the advice to temper your expectations of the building but to expect some great views on the mountain. If you like hiking and plan do some in the area anyway then the best bang for your buck (free) would be to just hike up to the location. It seemed like a reasonable climb and that way you could kill a few birds with one stone (see the site and do some hiking). That would be the best way to make the most out of the experience.
