We had Monday off because of Whitsunday (aka the day after Pentecost)
which coincided nicely with memorial day in the U.S. We spent the day in
Berchtesgaden which is home to the eagle’s nest that was Hitler’s hideaway in the
alps. The Eagle’s nest and the buildings below it make up a city that only Hitler
and his cronies were able to visit, they didn’t allow anybody else to come to
this area. When Justin (another of the BYU students) was researching this area
on trip advisor somebody left a comment that only extremists (aka Nazis) or
those that are ignorant should come to this place. He probably fears that
people come here to memorialize hitler. I choose to see it the other way, that
this was their exclusive land but now everyone is allowed to go there and enjoy
this beautiful area because of those that served our country. It was a great
place to be on memorial day.
We first went to the museum at the bottom that included an
underground bunker that the Nazis had built. In this museum I learned that Hitler
actually died in a bunker in berlin, I always thought he had died at the eagle’s
nest. After the museum we rode buses up to the copper elevator and rode the
elevator to the eagle’s nest. We didn’t spend much time inside the building, it’s
just a restaurant now and it was looted pretty extensively by the 101st
airborne when they discovered it. They even took the toilet seat. There was
snow everywhere up at the eagle’s nest and the snow was hard packed and really
icy. You could tell who was accustomed to walking on snow. The people from the
middle east were struggling, I was doing okay, and Spencer (a BYU student that
served his mission in Finland) was doing just fine. We enjoyed the views, at
least the ones that we could see since it was really cloudy. It was beautiful
though. Afterwards, we walked drove to the Konigssee which is a really big
lake. We walked down to the shore and spent the time just sitting there
enjoying nature before driving the 5 hours back to Jena. It was a great weekend
and now a week later I think I’m finally fully recovered from it.
The eagle's nest
Edelweiss cross near the eagle's nest
Eagle's nest
the konigssee
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