Wesley woke up in the morning and went out onto the balcony to an amazing view of the Alps. He sat there absorbing it for the better part of an hour, basking in the glory of being engaged. When Sterling awoke, we mustered our things and went down to the breakfast room and had some food. We headed back down to the train station to figure out where to go for tours of the Eagle’s nest. We found the bus information about the site and browsed the shops in the station until the bus arrived. Wesley was excited that he found a Star Wars book in German. The bus arrived and it took us up to the visitor’s center for the Eagle’s Nest. We bought tickets and awaited another bus to actually take us to the site.
The bus ride up to it was beautiful and scary. The meandering mountain road was very narrow and at some points we have to stop and wait for another bus to go by since it was only one lane. The view more than made up for it though. We arrived at the top and took an elevator up to the site. After some of the less than truthful information at Dachau, we probably shouldn’t have been surprised to find that the Eagle’s Nest was turned into a restaurant.
We wandered the mountain top a bit, and took some pictures. Since we had a ton of time before our bus was to leave, we decided to also have lunch. Wesley had weiner schnitzel and Sterling had something. After absorbing a much as possible we took the trail down from the top. It was a surprisingly decently maintained trail and was a fun little path back to the buses.
After we got on our bus and returned to the visitor’s center, we went on a little hunt. Our guide at Dachau told us about a hotel near the Eagle’s Nest visitor’s center that had a relatively untouched nazi bunker that you could tour. We walked half a mile the wrong direction before flagging someone down for help. They pointed us in the right direction (a path we started walking down but then back tracked) and we headed over there.
The place was manned by an old lady who we believe is the daughter of the original owner during the war. It was 3.50 euro to enter through an old turnstyle. The entrance was an old spiral stone staircase that lead to the main hallway of the bunker. It was amazing how untouched this place was by propaganda and intervention. To the left was a long hallway down to a bricked up general’s quarters. To the right was another long staircase that lead down to the main bunker. There were soldier’s quarters and bathrooms along with a ready room where their equipment would have been. There were many MG42 nests (without the MG42’s sadly). One was broken open by a bazooka round. The best part though was there was a bricked up room that was the quarters of Hitler and Braun when they stayed there. There was a little hole at the top of the wall but our camera couldn’t really see anything inside. Throughout the complex was scribblings on the wall, swastika’s that had been drawn over to be squares, and information about the rooms. This was probably the coolest place we’ve ever visited.
We worked our way out and headed back to the visitor’s center. We found a place to wait for a bus and after a while of waiting and worrying that it wouldn’t come, a bus finally showed up as it started to rain. It took us back to the train station and we hopped on a train to Salzburg. When we arrived we went over to a Burger King and made reservations at a hotel. We were really tired by the time we got there and just crashed for the rest of the evening.
There and back again 