Beautiful Berchtesgaden

Berchtesgaden is a picturesque small town nestled in the Alps on the border with Austria and only 30 kilometers to Salzburg. It is rich in history, has numerous small onion dome churches, and is incredibly beautiful. Anyone who enjoys nature, history, and relaxation, should visit Berchtesgaden.

Highlights:

Take a hike: The most wonderful thing about Berchtesgaden is the scenery! Even if you aren't an outdoorsy person, take at least one hike. The air smells so fresh, the water is crystal clear, and the mountains are breathtaking! The tourist office in town can provide more details about hiking trails in the National Park or just hike around in the nearby town of Schönau a. Königssee. It has beautiful pastures with views of the surrounding mountains.

Take a bus: Up to the Kehlsteinhaus or Eagle's Nest. This was a home built for Hitler for his 50th birthday. The home sits on Kehlstein mountain (1835 meters) above Berchtesgaden. The only way to get to the Kehlsteinhaus is to ride a bus from Obersalzberg because the road is too narrow and winding for normal automobile traffic. In fact, the road (and the Kehlsteinhaus) are close during the winter and early spring because the road has to be repaired from the frequent falling rocks.

Take a boat: Across the Königssee, a beautiful, clear lake in Berchtesgaden National Park. The boats are electric so you won't be harming the pristine environment, but the delightful breeze and the smell of the mountains will refresh you.

Take a train: Into a salt mine. If you have children, or you're a big kid yourself, you'll get a kick out of the Salzbergwerk or the Salt Mine tour. A mini-train takes you into the mountain for an informative and exciting tour, and you'll get to slide down the famous wooden miners' slides!

Take a walk: Around downtown Berchtesgaden. Window shop, eat an ice cream cone, and people watch. There are shops selling various handicrafts including woodcarvings and pottery. These items are made in the area by local craftspeople and lack the tacky feel of so many souvenirs. Don't get me wrong, I've bought my fair share of tacky/touristy stuff in other destinations, but it's nice to also bring home souvenirs that were made by hand with love and care, not simply put together in a factory.

Quick Tips:

If you are also planning a visit to the Salzburg area or to the Austrian Lake District (e.g., Hallstat), I would strongly suggest using Berchtesgaden as a home base for a few days. We found that the prices for hotels in Berchtesgaden were significantly lower than in the areas we wanted to visit in Austria, and although we spent a little extra driving back-and-forth, it was wonderful to stay in the same hotel for several days.

Before you go to Berchtesgaden, visit this website. The website provides information on accommodations, points of interest, and restaurants/pubs for Berchtesgaden and the surrounding towns (e.g., Ramsau). The website gives an overview of many of the points of interest listed, and provides address and websites (if available) for the hotels and restaurants.

Once you reach Berchtesgaden, visit the town's Tourist Information office. Of all of the places we visited on our last trip to Germany/Austria, this office was the most helpful. I saved almost everything they gave us to help us plan our next trip or to give to friends and family.

Make sure you bring a good pair of walking shoes, a fleece or light jacket for cooler evenings, and a camera.

Best Way To Get Around:

We rented a car for our trip and drove to Berchtesgaden. Driving gave us a lot of freedom to visit out of the way sights and travel at our own pace. It's also a lot of fun to drive around on the steep and winding roads in the hills and mountains! The big downside to driving is the associated expenses of gas and parking.

The next time we travel to Berchtesgaden, we will rent a car again. However, there are other transportation options. There is a train station in Berchtesgaden that has lines coming in from several larger cities (e.g., Munich, Salzberg). You can also pick up buses from the train station that will take you to several key tourist destinations (e.g., Dokumentation Obersalzberg). I didn't see any taxis in the area, but I wasn't looking for them.

A final note, if you do rent a car and decide to drive into Salzburg, take the local road (B305) not the Autobahn. You can stop on the way, park your car, and take the train into Salzberg. Parking is very expensive in Salzberg!

The charming Hotel Georgenhof is a 3-story traditional mountain hotel. It is nestled on a small road with several other hotels about 10 minutes outside Berchtesgaden, but it feels like you are staying in a remote village. To get to the hotel from the town, you travel up and around on a winding road past some pastures and a small onion-dome church. Drive with the windows down--the smell of the fresh air is invigorating!

The Family Weindl runs the hotel and they are fluent in both German and English. One of them will greet you when you walk into the small lobby to check-in. The grown son was very helpful providing directions and offering suggestions about what to see and do in nearby Salzburg.

Several room options are offered (e.g., single rooms, flatlets, etc.). My husband and I stayed in a double room which was spacious, had a very clean private bathroom (with toilet and standing shower), and a comfy "double" bed. Really two single beds next to one another, but that's pretty standard in Europe. The decor was a little bland, but tasteful. The furniture was a light solid wood and consisted of the beds, a desk (with locking drawer), and a small table.

The most surprising part of the room was a very large built-in wardrobe across from the bathroom. We both could unpack all of our belongings and still have room to store our suitcases inside the wardrobe. We stayed at the Georgenhof for 4 nights so it was fantastic to be able to unpack and really make the room a temporary home.

The best part of the room was the wooden balcony equipped with a table and chairs. The view of Mt. Watzmann was breathtaking! And, again, I can't stress enough how wonderful the fresh air smelled!

Rooms at the Georgenhof are purchased with or without half-board (supper). We purchased our rooms without--vegetarians don't do well with traditional Bavarian suppers! But all rooms come with an extensive breakfast. Each group staying at the hotel gets a table for breakfast that is "theirs" for the remainder of their stay. Breakfast consisted of coffee, juice, croissants, rolls, yogurt, fruit, cereals, meats, and cheeses. There was an assortment of fruit spreads... try the cherry spread! I always ended eating one more roll than I really wanted to just so I could have some more cherry spread.

There are too many positive attributes about this hotel to name them all... clean rooms, great views, privacy, reasonable prices, friendly staff, cherry fruit spread!

The one drawback to the Georgenhof was the other guests. They were all very nice, and we would often chat with people at other tables during breakfast. However, we were the only couple under 30. It might have been nice to have some other younger couples there to socialize with, but I'm not complaining... my husband and I loved it! We'll definitely be staying at the Georgenhof the next time we're in the area!

My husband and I had initially decided NOT to visit the Salt Works because we thought the 13 Euro price tag was a little pricey. We were so happy that we changed our minds!

The Berchtesgaden Salt Works have been in operation since the 1500s, and they continue to mine salt today. The Salt Works are open from 9am to 5pm during the busy season (May 1 to Oct 15) and from 11:30am to 3pm during the low season (Oct 16 to April 30). The actual tour of the mine last about an hour, but you'll need extra time to put on your miner's clothes beforehand and purchase funny pictures afterwards!

After purchasing your tickets, you'll be ushered into a changing room and given protective miners clothes to slip over your street clothes. Your new outfit will consist of a pants, tops, and a leather "butt-cover" that you'll tie around your waist. Next you'll board a mini-train and travel into the mine with your tour group. When the train stops, you'll be in a large "cave," and the tour guide will usher you over to the giant wooden slides. This is where your "butt-cover" comes in handy... No brush burn on your bottom! You'll get onto the slides, four at a time, raise your legs, move your body forward, and slide down. Make sure to hold on to the person in front of you! Oh, and remember to SMILE!

After the sliding adventure, your tour guide will find out what language you speak and point you to the appropriate sign (i.e., English, Spanish, Italian, and French). The tour guide will conduct the tour in German, and after he's done speaking, he'll turn on a recording in your language. It was all very well organized, and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about salt mining. The tour ends with another set of wooden slides and a train ride out of the mountain.

You'll arrive out of the mountain and into the sunlight to find that your picture was taken at several points. We bought the picture of us sliding down the first wooden slide. It was too funny to pass up!

This would be a great activity for families!

http://www.salzwelt.de/salzbergwerk-berchtesgaden/en/default.asp

The Königsee or King's Lake is located in Berchtesgaden National Park about 15 minutes out side of the town of Berchtesgaden. The Königsee is the deepest lake in Germany and resembles a fjord because of the steep mountain walls surrounding it. The water is very crisp and clear, due in part, to the exclusive use of electric boats in the lake. In fact, the boats have been running on batteries since 1909!

After parking your car in the large lot, you'll walk through a series of shops and hotels until you get to the lake and the dock, where you can take a boat ride on the lake. Tickets can be purchased to take you to St. Bartholomä, about half way across the lake, or to Salet, completely across the lake. Brochures are available in German and English describing the routes and prices. When we visited, the round trip to Salet was €14. Boats run continuously throughout the day so you don't need to worry about missing your boat... you can just catch the next one.

The highlight of the boat ride is the trumpeter. The boat will stop on the right side of the lake at a spot called the Echowand. The captain will then lean his body towards the Echowand and play the trumpet producing a beautiful echo that can be heard throughout the lake. There are also two waterfalls that can be seen on the boat ride: the Königsbachfall, which is on the left side of the lake before St. Bartholomä, and the Schrainbachfall, which is on the right side on the way to Salet.

A round trip across the lake to Salet and back without getting off the boat takes about 2 hours... but you really should get off the boat and see the sights!

Perfect for a short, refreshing morning hike!

The Obersee is a small lake approximatley 1.5 kilometers long and .5 kilometers wide. It is reached from Salet, the final stop around the Königssee. For information on the boat trip on Lake Köngissee, see my previous review. The Obersee was once a part of the Köngissee, but falling debris from the surrounding mountains seperated them.

The walk from the Salet station on the Königssee takes anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes depending on your pace and the number of pictures you stop to take. We visited in the spring and there was a beautiful, and fairly fast running stream, paralleling the hiking path. I was amazed at how clear the water in the stream was, but was even further astonished when we reached the Obersee. Not only could I see the bottom of the lake, I could also see perfectly the feet of the ducks swimming in the water. Quite a suprise for a girl who grew up in New Jersey!

There was also a small wooden buiding in the shallow portion of the lake. My guess is that the spring melt had filled the lake up beyond its usual dry weather level.

After stopping to take some pictures, we decided to hike around the lake. The path was fairly wide and free of debris. It was also close to the lake and we ended up with some great pictures of the Obersee with the cliff walls on the opposite side. About 20 minutes into the hike, we reached a 15 foot mound of snow on the trail! On one side of the snow was the mountain side and on the other was the lake so we climbed over the snow. It was very surreal to be sweating in jeans and a T-shirt and climbing over a mound of snow!

From there the hike proceeded smoothly until we reached a large patch of ice covering the path. We managed to get it across that without sliding into the lake and walked for another 10 minutes or so. We eventually came to a gate. We could see a man chopping wood in the distance so we assumed that the gate marked the entrance to his land and we turned around.

The out-and-back trip lasted about an hour and was well worth it!

Dokumentation Obersalzberg is a museum located in the hills of Berchtesgaden. The ground on which it stands was once part of a larger compound that effectively served as a second capital of the Third Reich. Several Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering built homes here. The site was bombed at the end of WWII and partially reforested. In 1999, the museum was opened on the site. The museum is a thorough examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich and pays special attention to Hitler's connection to the Berchtesgaden area, and the atrocities committed by members of the National Socialist party.

The site can be reached by car or by taking a bus from the train station. (The parking lot for the Obersalzberg is also where you pick up the bus to go to the Kehlsteinhaus [Eagle's Nest], a home that was built for Hitler.) From April to October, the museum is open from 9am to 5pm 7 days a week, and from November to March, it is open from 10am to 3pm open Tuesday to Sunday. Last admission is always an hour before the closing time. Admission is €3, and the hand-held audio guide (available in English and highly recommended!) is an additional €2.

This is an extensive museum! You can easily spend 4 or 5 hours here reading all the displays and listening to the audio guide. We visited in the afternoon after a morning of hiking, and I was just too tired to take in everything.

The tour begins by going upstairs in the gallery. This section provides information about the Berchtesgaden area when Hitler first started visiting. As you move downstairs, there are pictures of the major members of the National Socialist party, along with the war crimes they were tried for at Nürnberg. Other displays in this section deal with the methods of coercion and propaganda used by the National Socialist party (e.g., police, concentration camps) and individuals and groups who resisted the National Socialist party. There are also maps describing the conflict during WWII.

The displays end when you reach the bunker system. The bunker complex is underground and consists of eight units, five of which are connected. There were living spaces, offices, running water, electricity, telephones and other amenities to help people survive for an extended period of time. Visitors can tour parts of the bunker. It was amazing how extensive the system was and how many people could fit inside! There is some signage in the bunker, but not nearly enough to explain everything thoroughly.

I highly recommend this museum. Although I was disappointed with the displays inside the bunker, the museum itself was very thorough. The audio guide allowed me to preview the displays to decide which ones I wanted to read thoroughly and which I wanted to skim or skip.