Salzburg; Friday, 18 April, 2014

Another hearty breakfast consumed I headed on into town and over to the main station to pick up the bus out to Schloß Hellbrunn. Originally built as a summer pleasure palace by the then Prince Archbishop, the grounds include a number of trick fountains designed to entertain the Prince’s guests, or mostly to entertain the Prince whilst soaking his guests, and much the same appears to be the case today with the tour guide taking quite a bit of pleasure in using the myriad of hidden jets to get as many of the visitors as possible at least a little damp.

Having taken in both the gardens and the palace I headed back into town and was just in time to sign up for an afternoon bus tour out to a salt mine and into the Bavarian alps.

The first stop of the tour was at one of the Prince Archbishops former salt mines near the town of Hallein. The tour through the mine takes about 90 minutes and included a ride on an old mine railway deep into the side of the mountain, a series of films about the history of the mines and salt’s relationship with both the Prince Archbishops and the city of Salzburg, a trip across a salt lake created as part of the extraction process and two very weird slides down, in one case, 42m between levels. The tour ends with an escalator ride back up to the level of the railway (as of course every good mine should have its own escalators…). Due to its location we ended up crossing the border into Germany and later back into Austria, all nearly 200m below the ground

From the mine we drove further up into the alps, crossing the border back into Germany, again, and this time up to the Obersalzburg, the area that became synonymous with the Nazi regime after Hitler brought a summer house here. Today there is almost nothing left of the giant fortified complex that was built up here, other than the Eagles Nest, the mountain top command centre, though as its only open between May and October it wasn’t possible to visit.

From the Obersalzburg we descended part way back down the mountains to the lovely small German town of Berchtesgaden. This is a pretty little town, and would probably still be a quiet sleepy Bavarian Alpine village if it hadn’t been the nearest settlement to the Nazi headquarters at the Obersalzburg and therefore the town name linked to them, and as such making the town a target for bombing raids at the end of the war.

After a stop in the town for a very late lunch we headed back onto the bus and back along the riverside to Salzburg.

Although lunch had only been about 50 minutes earlier, it had been very light, so I grabbed a light dinner before having a bit of a wander round town and then headed back to the hotel.