Zum Berchtesgaden! Pronounced as: bare – ch – tez – gahden. Where the ch sounds like a throaty scratching hissing noise. It is not ‘berchessgarden’. Whew! Now that that’s finally out of the way, I have made it to one of the top 3 places I have been looking forward to the most. The ultimate Bavarian town of Berchtesgaden. Back during WW2 the only way to live in the town was to be a ranking member in te Nazi party. It is currently famous for the salt mines, still mined today around 500 years later. Also for the famous Kehlsteinhaus, aka Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest mountaintop vacation home, and the area is also famous for the beautiful Königsee (king’s lake).  The morning after my main day in Salzburg I hopped on the bus to Berch…which is only about 40 minutes away, both towns are close to the border.

It was still too early to check in, but I dropped my stuff off, and headed down (northeast) to the Salzbergwerk, the salt mines! A super fun adventure where you dress up like a miner, take a lengthy train ride into the mountain like a miner, hike through the caves like a miner, slide down long wooden slides to get around like a miner, and take boat rides through flooded chambers like a miner, but not mine salt like a miner. Seriously though after dressing up you take a few minute train ride at about 10-15 mph where the stony roof is no more than a foot over your head and 2 feet on either side. You wander into a massive chamber deep underground with a tour guide and watch a lazer light show, and walk through the dark caves and go down long slides. There are exhibits and models inside, as well as old old 1800s equipment used in the mines. After more spelunking you get onto a boat and cross another huge flooded chamber (filled with springwater intentionally where it sits for years and years and years to help collect salt) and watch a neat trippy like show that reflects onto the water making the walls and everything sparkle as you cross the dark lake. Just on the other side is a fountain of sorts you can drink from…that also happens to be exttrreemmeeellyy salty. Who’da thunk? After more traversing you take another train ride back outside to the surface world. I’m so used to rides I kept expecting sudden drops and hard turns and to be cranked up hills on the train, but none of that. It is all flat and straight. It was a super exciting adventure. Of course we didn’t see any actual mining or miners going on about their work.

After that I checked in and wandered around the town. It rained and rained and rained from the moment I woke up in Salzburg to late at night here, and was cloudy and foggy all day, only allowing me a glimpse of the Eagle’s Nest at the end of the day. Strangely, as pretty as the town is, it is not quite as ‘enchanting with old style housing’ as I thought it was. The town is mostly a long strip set down along a road.