Munich=München

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Our next stop of the day was the center of Munich.

Making our way to the Marienplatz, one of the city's central squares, Em was almost swallowed by a fish.

The 100-year old New Town Hall in the Marienplatz in the center of Munich. This was one of the only buildings in the area not heavily damaged during WWII bombing raids.

Em and a Golden Man

A dragon making his way up the New Town Hall

The hall's famous glockenspiel tells two stories: 1) a wedding day celebration and 2) the end of a plague celebration. We were too late and didn't get to see the 15-minute show.

You can see the glockenspiel in the center of the building.

David and the kids jumped at the chance to explore the Apple store we spied around the corner. As Micaela walked around the store, she came upon yet another computer display and typed on the keyboard a bit and clicked on the mouse, when a voice behind her said in German, "Excuse me, but that's the cash register." Micaela turned around and came face to face with a semi-amused security guard. She said later, "I was wondering why there was a credit card scanner there."

Lederhosen!

The Old Town Hall

If we had had more time, we would have toured the Barbie exhibit in Munich's Toy Museum housed in the tower of the Old Town Hall.

We were totally amazed to find ourselves in front of the world-famous beer hall Hofbräuhaus am Platzl.

James in the entryway

The beer hall building was originally built in 1607 as an extension of the original Hofbräu brewery built decades before.

In the bombing of WWII, everything but the ground floor was destroyed; it took until 1958 to be rebuilt.

Oom-pah band added to the Oktoberfest-like atmosphere

The menu

David with his beer. We still had to drive 1-1/2 hours to our hotel, so David and I had mixed beers -- his was a dark beer diluted with soda water....

....while mine was a lighter beer mixed with Sprite, a drink I found wonderfully refreshing. And for the record, neither of us finished the whole stein.

For a snack, we opted for Munich’s meatiest delicacy: the delicate, white veal sausage called weisswurst, served with sweet mustard, and soft pretzels for the kids.

Becca and a fanta

We allowed Micaela to order her first cup of coffee

Our waitress

Schönau am Königsee

After seeing the Eagle's Nest, we stopped by Schönau am Königsee to relax and have lunch. The lake Königsee is noted for its clear water and is advertised as the cleanest lake in Germany. For this reason, only electric driven boats, rowboats and pedal boats have been permitted on the lake since 1909.

View of the mountains from the little town square.

Schönau is an Alpine souvenir mecca and we couldn't resist buying Bex and Em their own dirndls. Micaela said "No, thank you," when we offered to buy her one and there was no way we were going to get a pair of lederhosen on James.

Ducks always attract attention. There are electric boats tours that can take you on a nice peaceful trip down the lake to see lovely sights...

...such a the 11th century Catholic pilgrimage church of St. Bartholomä which can only be reached by ship or after a long hike. However, we were set to stop by Munich and drive farther still to our hotel, so we decided to eat lunch and be on our way.

Lovely hotel in the square

Authentic dirndls

Hmmmm, where to have lunch....McDonald's won out just because we wanted to save time. At least it was on the outskirts of town. And, yes, those are Alps in the distance.

Look what we passed on the way out of town.

The Eagle's Nest

This morning we got up and prepared to leave Salzburg. While we were packing, Bezaubernde Jeannie (I Dream of Jeannie) was on TV. Emilie was enthralled with it, but at the moment when Jeannie's existence was on the verge of being discovered by Dr. Bellows, Emilie clapped her hands over her ears and ran around the room yelling, "Oh, no! I just can't watch! I can't stand it! Oh, no!" I never realized how suspenseful I Dream of Jeannie could be.


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We left Salzburg and in minutes were back in Germany.

We headed deeper into the Alps toward Hitler's chalet, the Eagle's Nest, located high up in the mountains.

Berchtesgaden is a beautiful spot in the mountains where Hitler had constructed a compound of 80 buildings which served as his second seat of government and planned refuge of last resort. Long before its association with Hitler, Berchtesgaden was one of the classic Romantic corners of Germany. This dramatic corner of Bavaria was steeped in legend and close to the soul of the German people. In fact, Hitler's propagandists capitalized on the Führer's love of this region to establish the notion that the former Austrian was truly a German at heart.

Almost everything in the compound, also called Obersalzberg, was destroyed by the victorious Allies (wanting to leave nothing as a magnet for future neo-Nazi pilgrims). Today you can visit the Nazi Documentation Center and learn about the rise of the Nazis, and you can tour the underground bunkers, but we were only interested in the one building that was left intact -- Kehlsteinhaus, or the Eagle's Nest, situated higher up the mountain.

From the parking lot in Obersalzberg where the compound had been, there is only one way to get up to the Eagle's Nest -- by bus, unless you want to make the long, steep trip on foot, which we didn't. The road there is only one lane, so only official Eagle's Nest buses are allowed to make the drive.

When we first arrived at the parking lot, it was cold, cloudy and then it began raining. How good would the view be and was it worth paying to go up? David said, "Let me check on bus tickets. If it's too expensive, we'll skip it. There's probably not much of a view anyway." Just a few minutes later we were on a bus making the 20-minute trip up the mountain, happy to be out of the cold rain.

With each passing minute, the rain lightened a bit and blue sky began peeking through the gray clouds.

After exiting the bus, we paused briefly for some pictures and in spite of the much nicer weather we were so happy to see, it was freezing! And Emilie and Rebecca were in shorts! What kind of parents are we?

Our trip was still not complete. We would need to walk 400 feet through a creepy marble-lined tunnel to the original brass elevator that would take us the last 400 feet up to the top of the mountain.

The chalet was a gift from the Nazi Party to Adolf Hitler for his 50th birthday in 1938 and was meant to be a retreat for Hitler and a place for him to entertain visiting dignitaries. Construction of the chalet was considered an engineering feat, including carving a 6-mile long winding road out of the side of the mountain. The Eagle's Nest cost $200,000,000 and 12 lives to construct. Hitler visited less than 20 times and usually for less than 30 minutes at a time. He was apparently afraid of heights. His mistress Eva Braun, however, often entertained her friends there.

Finally at the top. Click on the photos to get the full effect.

It was unexpectedly warm up at the top.

Edelweiss cross

The former great hall is now a restaurant.

The fireplace was a gift from Mussolini. In 1945, victorious allied soldiers chipped off countless souvenirs.

This was another one of those instances where we didn't know quite how to feel being here. The views were magnificent, but my mind kept drifting back to the Orthodox Jewish family we passed in the tunnel leading to the elevator. What had they been thinking? It was strange being a tourist in a place so strongly connected to Hitler. But then I figured that this visit, walking where he walked, having a Jewish family stroll though his $200,000,000 chalet, was like symbolically thumbing our noses at him.

As our visit came to a close and we boarded the bus to descend the mountain, angry-looking clouds rolled in, obscuring the view,and it resumed raining. We had lucked out.