Fly Like An Eagle

(Note:  Back at the hotel in Munich which won´t let me upload pictures, so they´ll have to wait until we get to Zurich in 2 days.  Sorry!)

Today was the point in this vacation which I've probably been looking forward to most: our trip up to the Eagle's Nest, the mountaintop hideout built for Hitler during the Nazi control of Germany.  First of all, let me be clear that when I say "mountaintop", I'm not talking about a small hill, or up in the higher areas of a nice skiing town.  I mean on top of a goddamn mountain:

This is the view from our tour bus as we drove over from Salzburg.  In order to get up to this ridiculously high spot, we first needed to disembark from our tour bus at the sort of "base camp" about halfway up the mountain.  From here, we hopped into these red buses which looked a bit large for sneaking up a tiny mountain road.

Various reactions to the beginning of the ride.  I don't trust other people to
drive me up ridiculously windy, narrow roads.

But sneak up the road we did, coming to quite a few areas where there was about 4 feet between the window of the bus and a sheer cliff face, protected only by a small, clearly-not-strong-enough-to-stop-a-moving-bus railings.

Pictured: not enough space for this bus to safely fit through.

This bus brought us to the base of the facility, which was essentially a brick-lined tunnel blasted into the side of the mountain.  We wandered into this tunnel, shivering at the icy cold breath of the Grim Reaper (or just really strong air conditioning), and walked about 200 feet into the mountain before reaching a brass-lined elevator, in which pictures were verboten due to the highly reflective walls.  By this point, we were all pretty unsure if we were at a historical site, or just the most elaborate Disney ride ever, a feeling not at all helped by the fact that our tour guide was dressed like a stocky German innkeeper from the 17th century.

Into the tunnel...of DOOM!

The elevator brought us and the 40 other somewhat scared, less-than-rosy-smelling members of our group up to the actual facility of the Eagle's Nest.  Quick history lesson:  the Eagle's Nest was a facility built by the Austrians for Hitler in the time leading up to World War II (possibly during it, can't remember for sure), and was meant to be used as a meeting place for foreign diplomats, not as a living quarter.  Therefore it's pretty small, and has little more than a few rock-walled rooms, though there is apparently a very extensive bunker network built into the mountain under it.  The facility, having been bombed and looted extensively by allied forces at the end of the War, is now home to, oddly enough, a nice German restaurant.

I bet their Wienerschnitzel is excellent.

I'll stop talking now, and just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Apparently the restaurant is sponsored by Hofbrau House?

View from above the facility...from a real estate perspective,
the building's not much, but you're really paying for the setting.

Guy's pic in front of a steep cliff.  Manly.

There's a surprising amount of shrubbery up there, all tastefully arranged.

THE MISSSTTTT!!

Down the mountain...that's a town in the middle-right-hand side.
Like a whole town.

"Hmmyes, Sir Hummel, that does look remarkably like a new,
unexplored territory, just ripe for a flag-planting!"

Somewhat more impressive  retake of an earlier picture from Pismo Beach.
I would post the older picture for reference, but facebook sucks
and I can't get download any pictures, even of myself.  Wtf.

Little stair path down the side, found a cool little arch and random
bench at the bottom of it!

Epic scenery photo.

So yeah, as you can see, it was a pretty cool place.