Berchtesgaden

Back in Germany! Today we went to Eagle's Nest (or Kehlsteinhaus in German) to hike four miles up the mountain to the house. For those of you who don't know, Eagle'a Nest was built for Hitler as a birthday present. It apparently has not been changed and you can tour the inside. But more on that later. 

We set out on a completely unmarked trail hoping we'd find our way. After 30 to 45 minutes of looking at unhelpful maps and walking an hour and a half up extremely steep trails, we decided to turn around in order to make the last bus back and ended up taking a bus up the mountain.  It ended up being a very good thing- there were maybe 8 inches of snow at the top and the trails were blocked off and closed due to the snow. Let me remind you this is abnormal weather, it should be around 60 or 70 and it's snowing....

When we reached the top we walked through a tunnel and took a 124 meter elevator which took what felt like 5 minutes. As it turned out we missed the two tours of the day but ended up eating at the restaurant that used to be the living room. I got my first wiener snitzel! It was off the kids menu and I still couldn't finish it. After lunch we wandered around outside in the snow which was amazingly slippery and you could hardly see in front of you. 

When we got back to our hotel, which looks like an adorable log cabin, we played in the pool outside- which is heated but still pretty cold when you got out of the water. Tomorrow we may stay here for a bit or just head to Münich. The next day we go to Neuschwanstein, the castle Cinderella's was based off of!!