Bavaria and Austria

I flew to Salzburg in mid-June for a weekend road trip through Bavaria and western Austria. But stupid me left my portable hard drive in the hire car, with most of my photos on it. Between that and the non-stop madness of the summer, it's only now, three months later, that I've had a chance to post my photos!

For many years now, I've wanted to visit the Kehlsteinhaus, pictured above, and colloquially known as Hitler's Eagle's Nest. It's one of the few remaining intact Nazi-built structures that is remembered as such, and its history is provided in full detail by the tour guides, in a factual manner, without glorification. Designed by Albert Speer, the Kehlsteinahus was built in secret, and presented to Hitler as a gift on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1938. It was intended to be the showpiece of the party's extensive Bavarian headquarters in Obersalzburg, near Berchtesgaden. And it certainly is impressive, perched on the edge of a steep peak with spectacular 360º views.

Even the trip to the Kehlsteinhaus is impressive: in special coaches that travel up a single-lane road that was etched into the rockface. The mountain road terminates at a car park, with a single stone arch leading into the mountain. Through the arch, one walks about 100m into the mountain in a stone-lined tunnel. At the end is a chandelier-lit waiting room, where one waits for the large brass elevator to take one up inside the mountain, opening directly inside the Kehlsteinhaus. It's all very James Bond villain. One half expects to see Blofeld's white cat lurking around the summit.

The Eagle's Nest was designed to impress foreign dignitaries, and it certainly does impress. It seems to me that National Socialism became the dominant political force on the back of one of the world's first successful mass PR exercises, ie propaganda, rather than an ideological agreement among the people. At the Kehlsteinhaus, one certainly gets a sense of how the German people were seduced by that showmanship.

After the Kehlsteinhaus, I drove to the adjacent towns of Berchtesgaden and Königsee. The latter is famous for its beautiful fjord-like lake. You can take a boat trip to an isolated Byzantine church, but I didn't have time... the only way to enter the lake is from the small bay at Königsee.

Before returning to Salzburg that evening, I detoured back into Bavaria to visit Hohenwerfen, a beautiful mediaeval fortress built on a steep hill. This stunning castle dates from the 11th century and was variously used a palace, a hunting retreat, and a prison. It's also famed for its falconry tradition. If Hohenwerfen looks familiar, you might remember it from Where Eagles Dare, and in the background of the "Do Re Mi" sequence in The Sound of Music.

Salzburg is a pretty town, especially in the old town... but it's outer-lying regions did seem a little lacklustre, and like Brussels, could have been Anywhere, Europe. Of particular interest to me were the Mirabell Gardens, and the Hohensalzburg Fortress that overlooks the town. From the castle, one can see a solitary house in a field. This was the executioner's house; no-one wanted to live near him!

Next stop on my road trip was Innsbruck, via the autobahn that snakes back and forth across the German/Austrian border. Innsbruck is a lovely old town, set in a valley between some very high mountain ranges. It was quite thrilling to see planes taking off from, and flying in to, Innsbruck; despite the height of the aircraft, they were still dwarfed by the mountainous terrain behind the town. Innsbruck hosted the 1964 Winter Olympics, and the Bergisel ski jump, built for those games, were recently renovated. I was able to snap a few photographs of a ski jumper practising on the Bergisel's jump. In lieu of snow, rubber mats are placed on the slope, and wet down by sprinklers prior to the jump.

The final stop on my trip was the beautiful fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein. Built by mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the castle is perched on a hill top against some beautiful Bavarian forest. Neuschwanstein later inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle. Ludwig apparently planned a third castle, Falkenstein, the most fairytale-like of them all, but he died under mysterious circumstances before he had the chance. Ludwig's building programme bankrupted him. Neuschwanstein was not finished before he died, and the government ceased work upon his death. Rumour has it, the Bavarian government had him done in, in fear of the king ransacking the state's treasury. In World War II, the Nazis stored stolen "Nazi gold" in Neuschwanstein. Before the end of the war, the gold reserves were removed, and, according to legend, were dumped in nearby Alat Lake.

All of my Salzburg photographs can be viewed in a slideshow here. And my photographs of Bavaria are in their own slideshow here.