Our last full day in Germany. We took a tour — included in our Oktoberfest package — of several sites in the Obersalzburg region, about 2 hours east of Munich right on the Austrian border. In fact, we did cross the border a couple times into Austria. Technically, we visited sites south of Salzburg, Austria…but we were still in Germany.
Originally we were supposed to visit Eagle’s Nest — Hitler’s mountaintop retreat — but the mountaintops received over a meter of snow late last week and the road to the top was closed through 25 September. We did visit the “Documentation Obersalzburg” center, attached to the remains of Hitler’s “Berghof” residence. It was incredibly interesting and I do recommend others try to see it. Dave and I took the 90-minute audio tour which walked us deliberately thru the exhibit center — it was remarkable how they stitched together the high-command’s visits to the Berghof with decisions impacting invasion- and Holocaust-related events that followed. Germany’s doing their best to share their history honestly, and I applaud them for that. Seeing a considerable amount of the bunker complex — and learning about the forced labor to build it — was also fascinating.
After a Bavarian lunch — weinerschnitzel for Dave and currywurst for me — we then visited the Salzbergwerk salt mine, dating back to the year 1517! We had to put on these suits to take the tour — descending into the mine involved multiple trips down 50’+ long slides. I’d compare some of the tour to Gene Wilder’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” — we rode a mine train and even traveled via boat across an underground lake. There is a weird soundtrack piped into the tunnels that just added to the… Willy Wonkaness. Seeing 500+ years of mining history was pretty cool. No photography inside the mines, sorry.
The drive back took us through some stunning Alpine valleys.
#oktoberfest? #obersalzbergdokumentation #obersalzburg #salzburgwerk #berchesgaden
