We walked the short couple of blocks to the train station and took the 9:16 a.m. train from Linz to Salzburg. We arrived in Salzburg and walked another short couple of blocks to our hotel (Best Western Stieglbrau).
I took pictures from the train of the Austrian countryside. Forgive the glare off of the windows, but I just had to remember how beautiful it was.
We were too early to check in to our hotel, so we left our luggage with the front desk and parted ways. We'd already decided earlier in the trip that my mom would stay in Salzburg for the day while I went over the border into Germany. I read about Berchtesgaden, Germany in my Rick Steves' book, and I struggled over whether or not to go, mostly because I didn't think my mom would be interested in it. I was right about whether or not she would be interested - she wasn't. I was still really curious because I wanted to see Hitler's bunkers and the famed Eagle's Nest, so my mom let me go on my own (yes, I still felt like I had to ask permission from my mom, even though I'm 30 years old!)
The bus to Berchtesgaden left the train station area at 11:15, so I hurried back up there to find the bus stop and get my bearings. I have to give props to Rick Steves on his directions for getting to Berchtesgaden - they were spot on. I can't say the same for ALL of his advice because we did find some flaws in his books along the way.
I took bus #840 over the border. Just outside of Salzburg we picked up a class of kids getting home from their field trip to the Salzburg Zoo. I gave up my seat for them, and was standing next to a couple of the parents and their teacher. As I looked at the kids, I thought, "They look like they're 7 years old." I asked one of the dads standing across from me, and he smiled and said, "Yes, they're 7 - in grade 2." It was a bright spot in my trip to see kids the exact ages of my kids, whom I missed a lot while I was gone!
Berchtesgaden is only 15 miles away from Salzburg, but the bus ride took 45 minutes. The scenery just kept getting better and better. We followed the Salzach River higher and higher into the mountains, and the further we got into Germany, the bluer the river got. It was this beautiful light milky blue. Again, forgive the glare off of the windows, but I had to get pictures of the scenery:
After getting to the bus station in Berchtesgaden, I got on bus #838 up to the Obersalzburg Bunker and Documentation Center. Some back history: In the 1920s, just out of prison, Hitler checked into a hotel in Obersalzburg to finish Mein Kampf. Because this is where he laid out his vision, it is often called, "The Cradle of the Third Reich". In the 1930s after Hitler became the German Chancellor, he chose Obersalzburg as his mountain retreat. It became a compound of 80 buildings, largely built by forced labor. It was closed to the public by 1936 and was where Hitler hosted foreign leaders to show them how great he was and where the big plans for WWII were hatched. In April 1945, the British RAF bombed the compound nearly flat, and in 1952 what little survived was blown up again by the Allies to curb people who might use the compound as a shrine to Hitler. The most extensive remains to survive were Hitler's bunker, an extensive underground compound meant to shield the Nazis from the Allies.
So, this bunker is what I was visiting in Obersalzburg. I paid to enter the museum and also forked over more money to buy the headsets so I could know what the plaques in the museum said (nothing was written in English). After a while, I knew I couldn't spend all day listening to my headsets, so I started skipping things and just looking at the pictures instead. I always thought Hitler's plan was concentration camps and killing Jews, but he was much more than that. He really was nuts. I took a few pictures in the museum before I headed into the bunker.
This was the tunnel leading further down into the bunker, but it wasn't the actual bunker.
After the museum displays ended, you walked deeper down underground into the bunker. Judging by the number of people outside the museum vs. the number of people inside, it seems like most people skipped the museum/bunker in favor of going solely to the Eagle's Nest. They missed out. The bunker was totally cool. And it was totally empty and creepy being down there all by myself. I walked through as many tunnels as were open, and I hardly saw anyone else down there. SPOOKY.
This is the guest bunker:
Where propane was stored:
The room that held power generators:
Kitchen and storage area:
Filing area:
Brick unfinished bunker:
This is looking down into the ventilation system. It was quite intricate for the time in which is was built, and it allowed fresh air to circulate despite the fact that the bunker was 2 stories underground.
Walking further into the tunnel:
Another storage area:
The air raid shelter:
Another unfinished part of the bunker:
This is the emergency exit, which was filled with rubble by the Nazis to try and disguise the bunker:
This is the stairs from the Hotel Platterhof down into the bunker. You can tell by the length of the stairs how deep underground the bunker was.
This is the outside of the museum. The bunker was underneath it.
The view from the museum and bunker was amazing. Little did I know that the view would be even better from the Eagle's Nest.
I got my ticket for the bus up to Eagle's Nest (the German name for it is Kehlsteinhaus) and waited in line for my bus to come. There is no fee to enter the Eagle's Nest, but you can only take their bus to and from the house on a winding, uphill one-way road, and it costs 15 Euro.
The story of Eagle's Nest itself is interesting. The house was built for Hitler for his 50th birthday at great expense, but he only went to it 14 times because he was afraid of heights. The house is perched atop a 6,000 foot peak, can only be accessed through this one-way road, and you have to take a brass elevator (it's still the original elevator that you ride up in!) up 100 yards to the inside of the house. At least Hitler's girlfriend, Eva Braun used the house for its excellent exposure to the sun so she could get a tan.
One thing I learned from standing in lines amongst Austrians and Germans is that they are not polite people. Once the bus came, there was much pushing and shoving. No single-file lines, no "ladies first". It was every man for himself. I decided to play it safe and stay out of the way of the boisterous group of hefty German dudes.
The views up the mountain were beautiful, but I couldn't get too many because I was sitting close to a stranger and because the road was pretty scary with a steep drop off! 
Once you got to the bus drop off at the top of the mountain, you had to stand in line to get your bus ticket stamped with your return trip time. Because of the amount of visitors and the way you have to get up the mountain, everything has to run like clockwork.
These are the views from the bus drop-off:
Yes, that is SNOW!
You can see Eagle's Nest at the top of the mountain. You had to walk through the tunnel at the bottom of the picture to get to the elevator that takes you up through the mountain to the house.
Going through the tunnel to get to the elevator:
The house itself is pretty disappointing. It was looted after the war was over, including chunks of the fireplace chipped off by American soldiers wanting a souvenir. The house has basically been turned into a restaurant, with only a couple of rooms open to the public. 
The views are what you go to the Eagle's Nest for. Being a mile up in the Bavarian Alps was AMAZING. These views are from the house:
Then, you get to hike up even further and the views just keep getting better and better!
This memorial has the edelweiss flower in the center of it:
You can see how far I climbed up buy looking at the teeny cross and edelweiss with people surrounding it in the distance:
SNOW! It wasn't hard-packed and frozen over, either!
Proof that I was there:
I had to wait quite a while for my return trip, and then the bus to Berchtesgaden was late as well. When I got to the bus terminal, I had another wait so I took a couple of pictures of the town of Berchtesgaden.
With all of the waiting for buses, I didn't get back to the hotel until just after 6. I came home to a very worried mom who took what I said to her earlier in the day, "Don't be worried about me unless it's dark outside and I haven't come home" and turned it in to, "I'll be home by 6." That's a mom for you! I really did wish I could have spent more time at the bunker and Eagle's Nest, to at least enjoy a dessert out on the patio, but I knew my mom would be worried if I took more time. I'm not sorry I went to Berchtesgaden at all. It was TOTALLY worth it. I know my mom (and Brian) were worried that I was traveling all by myself into another country, but it was completely safe and it was a great experience.
I hadn't had anything to eat all day long since breakfast, so my mom went out with me to try to find something to eat. We ended up at this eclectic little cafe that served pizza with some more exotic fare. I got the felafel sandwich. Those little brown cakes in there were some sort of fried corn cake. The sandwich was completely vegetarian. Not bad, though. 
This was our room in Salzburg. Not the most glamorous, but at least our beds were across the room from each other instead of pushed together.
Oh, and what did my mom do all day long? She sat on a bench in Mirabell Gardens and read a book for 3 hours, and then had lunch at the hotel. My mom is one adventurous babe!
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