The Eagle's Nest

Looping down in to Austria is a chunk of Germany with some stunning scenery and we move on to Bad Reichenhall and a stellplatz just over the road from another Therme

Its our plan to visit Bad Aibling therme later in the week so we resist the temptation and get the bikes out to cycle along the river

This was a great ride and only the sun going down limited our distance

Beauty and the beast…

Back at the stellplatz these fellas are looking for good homes

Next morning our friendly German neighbour tells us that 30km away is the location of Kehlsteinhaus

Better know to us Brits as 'The Eagle's Nest', the mountain top tearoom built as a present to Adolf Hitler to celebrate his 50th Birthday

Now I can't miss this so given I know that today is the last sunny day for a while and snow is imminent locally, we change plans and head south again

This beautiful scene was completely obscured by cloud next day

Complete driving pleasure...

Some back garden eh!

Under the guy's direction we duly arrive at Königssee and settle in a Parkplatz. Only trouble is we are in the wrong spot and even though we can see the 'Nest' from below, we need to drive a few kms back through Berchtesgaden and up the 1 in 4 hill to the bus station in order to visit Kehlsteinhaus

Off limits to bikes, cars and anything else mechanical the route up the remainder of the mountain road is the sole preserve of the guys running the bus service

Quite hair raising in the both the narrowness of the actual road for the dedicated buses, and also the rip off cost of our one way tickets!

We took our sticks and walking gear and decided we would enjoy the walk back down to the van

View down to Königssee

The nearest we got to an eagle…..

Peter & Paul no doubt...

Not sure what we were expecting up here as we went on a whim with little research

Hitler's folly, which he seldom visited, is nevertheless stunningly located but alas in private hands and run as a restaurant. Some form of visitor information boarding at the top would not go a miss me thinks

Not quite the 101st Airborne but great to walk in their footsteps….

I look at this and expect MGM or 20th Century credits to roll...

Me again Hank….sorry

Rear garden view...

So comes the time for the great decent and my swollen knee just loves it….

Part way down the rear access road 

Several punters (at the ticket office below) had advised us that it was too late in the day to walk the whole way back down the alternate path as it would soon get dark

Thanks chums but we made it easily, albeit achingly, in daylight and not once were we attacked by mountain bears or snakes or the like

Oh and no thanks we didn't need the DVD or guidebook you were trying to offload on to us….