Can’t pronounce that? Yeah, us either. Schönau am Königssee is a picturesque resort town tucked in most southern part of the German alps. Austria is just on the other side of the mountains. On Tuesday night, the team arrived in the early evening before making camp. We were expecting nice weather on Wednesday, so we wanted to get an early start on the day to explore two of Koniggssee’s sights - the Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus) and Berchtesgaden National Park.
Wednesday started around 7 AM with the usual - Nestle Taster’s Choice instant coffee. It’s served scalding hot and it doesn’t taste exactly like coffee; but I think we can all agree caffeine helps us bear each other’s presence more graciously on early mornings. Joe was driving and we had quite the incline to reach the Eagle’s Nest parking lot which meant a lot of first and second gear driving. While the gear shifting was far from smooth, we reached Obersalzburg, the alpine town that used to be basecamp for Hitler’s restricted area where many Nazi war plans were devised by high ranking party officials in seclusion of the German Alps. To get to the actual Eagle’s Nest, you can either hike up or take a shuttle bus. We elected to take the bus to allow for maximum time hiking in Berchtesgaden in the afternoon. The bus smoothly navigated up the shear face of the mountain in 20 minutes. Luckily no cars are allowed up because it would have taken Stevie an hour. At the top, we walked down a 100 yard damp, stone tunnel, before taking a gold plated elevator up 124 meters to the Eagle’s Nest. The Eagles Nest itself was built as a retreat and relaxation getaway for Hitler and high ranking Nazis. Eva Braun was known for visiting the house commonly in the summers. Hitler, on the other hand, hated the place and only visited 14 times. Luckily for us, the weather was perfect and we took in panoramic views in all directions. The building now is converted to a restaurant, which is kind of a bummer, so we of course had ourselves a 9:30 AM Hefeweizen as we admired the scenery and toasted the US 101st Airborne for their capture of the place 74 years ago.
The Eagle’s Nest. It’s a shame that this is a restaurant and not a museum
Prost Cpr. Winters
We headed to Berchtesgaden in the afternoon. Berchtesgaden is the only national park in the alps and it features a beautiful blueish-green alpine lake, Königssee, in the middle of it. Shear mountain faces fall into the water on each side of the lake, and it opens up to green open pastures on the south side. It was like an inland fjord in the middle of the mountains. Although I’ve never seen Sound of Music, this place reminded me of it. We took the hour-long, park licensed ferry to the south side of the lake where we completed the Obersee and Röthbach Falls hike. It was a beautiful hike that tracked the coast line of the Obersee alpine lake before running into shear mountain walls where a 450+ m falls cascaded down the rockface. We hiked up to the base of the falls, well Joe and Mike did, to see some incredible views of the valley and two lakes, Obersee and Königsee, off in the distance. We have some pictures but nothing will do it justice. We were planning to stay another night here but tomorrow we are thinking of heading to Salzburg early after one last early morning hike (and perhaps swim) in Berchtesgaden. -FWY
Ferrying across the lake
View from base of Röthbach falls with the two lakes in the distance
FWY