Karen and Crew: Eagle's Nest

We have made a little tradition (at least 3 weeks in a row now) of going to the pool Thursday night. It's a motivation for the kids to be cooperative with school, and a chance for Matt and I to swim laps and give our legs a break from running. We run together most evenings after work. It's a great pool with an indoor/outdoor section, a little wave pool, a good lap pool, and best of all one inner tube slide, 2 serious steep slides, one "black hole" slow slide, and a short extra wide slide for doing silly stunts. The outdoor area has different features that take turns; such as, a strong whirlpool, overhead sprayers, back massagers, jets and fountains. We usually go around 6 and stay till they close at 9. And of course everyone is ravenous afterwards, so we pick up a couple of pizzas on the way home at an Italian cafe, the current favorite is artichoke and olive. Thursdays are late nights for us. But I digress, completely. I was just intending to say that Matt and I were sitting in the wave pool watching the kids try body surfing and brainstorming about weekend plans. We decided to look into the Berchtesgaden area when we got home.

During the day Friday, I made a reservation for one night and we left early Saturday morning. Following the pattern, we had slow traffic on our way there, but made much better time on the way home. We went to the Eagle's Nest first. This chalet house on top of a mountain was built as a gift for Hilter's 50th birthday. I don't know who the insane person was who thought of it a few years earlier so they had time to scale the mountain, make plans, build a road so they could bring up supplies. . . . I flipped through a couple of English tourist books at the top and good golly, it was no small feat. And then he didn't even appreciate it, rarely visiting because he was afraid of heights. Now hundreds of visitors from all over the world take the scary bus ride to the top to climb/hike around and enjoy the amazing view.

This is on the bus ride up. Can you see Jessica's face reflected off the glass on the left? Accidental but rather cool.

Now we are on the top looking down. It was a beautiful view and we have lots of pictures to prove it. Matt had command of the camera for the duration of this activity.

Walking through the tunnel to the fancy elevator which takes you the rest of the way up to the Eagle's Nest.

We didn't spend much time inside. It was a little crowded at first, and there's not much to see anyway apart from the big dining room It was more fun to walk and hike around.

We were looking down on some hang gliders. They must have had some great drafts because they hung in the air the whole time we were up there--2 hours. You can see them in the shot below.

It was beautiful, but warm. We bought a water bottle, and I made sure it said "still" on the outside, but the girls still despised the taste. They do not like mineral water, with or without gas. And unfortunately, "Leitungswasser" (tap water) is sometimes hard to come by.

I like this one because you can see Matt's shadow at the bottom, taking the picture.

This cross is in so many postcards and vistor books. I'm embarrassed to say I'm not sure what it is memorializing. There was always a group taking a picture or waiting to take a picture, so I couldn't have Matt read the plaque. It is at the summit and you can look down on the "Teehouse" from here. On top of another big mountain we visited, the cross is for the mountain climbers and rescue workers that have died on it's slopes.