Sud du France

We had one final weekend away and I had been looking forward to it for weeks. Not that Berchtesgaden wasn't appealing, but this trip promised memorable sites and much less driving (although travel would still take its toll). The plan was to fly RyanAir (yes, the same people trying to figure out how to charge for using the in-flight lavatories) to Marseille, then rent a car (prepaid Alfa-Romeo!) and drive west from Provence to Nîmes. The first destination was Pont du Gard, the ancient Roman aqueduct situated a few minutes north of Nîmes.


When we arrived in Marseille, Europecar laid an egg and we ended up with a Renault Modus which is a far cry from the Alfa 147 I had reserved. The reservation said "Alfa 147 or similar": the 147 is a sleek Italian hatchback and the Modus is a boxy French 5-door (they both have four wheels and an engine so that was "similar" enough). Undaunted, we set out with the GPS guiding us northwest toward Nîmes. Driving past fields of blooming sunflowers with the cool, dry Mediterranean air, we arrived at Nîmes intending it to be simply a waypoint on the way to other sights, but we were pleasantly surprised by the Roman buildings passed during our drive through the city center.


After a lovely dinner and a walk around the Roman Arena, it was early to bed and early to rise. Breakfast was followed by a quick daylight tour of the Arena, a preserved section of the ancient Roman city gate, the Temple, and the pool where the water delivered via Pont du Gard ultimately entered Nîmes. Then, it was a short drive to Pont du Gard where we hiked the hills to take photos from numerous angles on a beautiful day and splashed in the river below to keep cool.


After visiting a marvelous example of ancient engineering we continued driving northwest up to the modern engineering marvel of the Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world. The French take pride in their engineering and the Viaduct is a stunning example (the headquarters of Airbus is nearby and the Viaduct giftshop sold photos of the new Airbus A380 flying over the Viaduct). The project was started in the 1970's when the French government decided to build a new motorway through the south of France and after years of planning and a design competition, construction began in 2001 and was completed in 2004. The Viaduct spans the valley near the town of Milleau and connects the center of France with the southern Mediterranean coastline.


Next the Modus was pointed southwest toward Barcelona and the French medieval city of Carcassonne. We had seen Carcassonne in a tour book and it had the double attraction of a walled fortress surrounding the old city and airport service from RyanAir. I had booked a hotel on the Internet (sight unseen, but it was rated well) and we were both surprised when we arrived and found that our hotel was actually inside the walls of the old city. Lugging a bag through cobblestone streets is a small price to pay for a great rate on a room with this kind of view:


We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and walked the streets before falling asleep to the accordion duet floating up from the restaurant outside our room. In the morning we prowled the empty streets for fresh pastries, then queued for the fortress tour. The city of Carcassonne is ringed by not one but two walls with turrets, and within the walls is a castle/fortress built by the Counts of Carcassonne. During the Middle Ages, Carcassonne was on the border of France and Spain and was always a point of contention until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 between France and Spain moved the border further south towards the modern border shared by the two countries.


The best part of the tour was walking the battlements with commanding views of the surrounding countryside. As we left, we stopped for a view from the other side of the river which flows past the city, in an attempt to capture Carcassonne's imposing presence at the top of the hill.


The end of the weekend turned a bit sour as RyanAir had apparently filled our return flight with members of the Extremely Unhappy French Children's Association, but overall the trip was a fantastic adventure under the beautiful blue skies of le sud du France.

The Eagle's Nest

Built by the Nazis as a 50th birthday present for Hitler in 1939, the Kehlsteinhaus or "Eagle's Nest" is constructed at the summit of the mountain Kehlstein and offers commanding views of the Bavarian Alps with views into southern Germany and toward Salzburg, Austria. The building sits at the top of a shaft bored into the mountain where an elevator whisks visitors up over 400 feet into the center of the structure.


Visitors walk down a long tunnel to the elevator entrance (which felt errily similar to Disney's Haunted Mansion amusement park ride).

We had risen early and were among the first visitors to the Eagle's Nest. Once at the top of the mountain, we had the run of the top of the mountain and were blessed with clear weather and fantastic views of the surrounding mountains and valleys.

The Eagle's Nest is not exactly at the summit, and we walked up the ridge to look down on the building, surrounded by the lush valleys below. Obersalzburg is the mountain community literally on the border between Germany and Austria. It is incredibly picturesque. It is one of the few communities in which the locals continue to wear the traditional dress - dirdl (female dresses, think Oktoberfest), tracht (embroidered linen and felt clothing, depicting a "Country Estate" style) , and lederhosen (leather, knee-length pants). You feel like you have been transported back to a simpler time. The beauty of the mountains and the deep commitment to tradition of the locals made us feel priviledged to visit.

Natural beauty surrounded us everywhere. We were blessed with incredible weather. When the clouds roll in, you can't see anything. Given that we only had a few hours in our time window before we had to start driving home, we couldn't have been more pleased. Thank you Lord.

Look at this view. Possibly one of my favorite pictures of us. Another thing I love about Europe - so few handrails. Can you imagine this in the US? We had an opportunity to go to the edge of the mountain and look (very carefully) over. Wow.



Here are the clouds rolling in, as I mentioned. It went from sunny and bright to overcast in 1 minutes. It was amazing to experience. Complaining about weather is a human pastime, but you don't realize true volatility until you visit a mountain top.

Another gorgeous sky - piercingly blue with fluffy, cotton-ball clouds. The sunrays filtering through made it seem almost surreal.

With the change of weather came our chance to visit the house. It is in virutally prestine shape. It has been well maintained, and given that it wasn't destroyed, again we felt like we were walking through history. The fireplace in this room is very cool (and sadly, I didn't get a good picture). Originally a gift from Mussolini, the beautiful red marble has taken a beating. Apparently, when the American forces liberated this facility, some soldiers wanted to take home a souvenir with them and chipped off bits of the marble mantle.

This is the impressive elevator. The objective was to overwhelm visiting dignitaries and the grandeur was indeed impressive. I couldn't get a good picture of it on the way up, but as we toured around, I got a chance to snap this picture.

If you have seen "Band of Brothers", this next picture will look familiar. Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion 506th Regiment, US 101st Airbourne Division claims to have been first to capture the Eagle's Nest. (Side Note: Several others have claimed to be first as well, but Kehlsteinhaus's museum states that it was captured by a member unit of the US 101st Airborne Division, so that gives legitimacy to their claim. Chalk up a victory for accurate historical reporting from Hollywood.) Photographs and newsreel footage show 3rd Infantry soldiers relaxing on the Eagle's Nest patio, "drinking Hitler's wine". This scene was captured in Band of Brothers on this patio.

Instead of taking the elevator back down again, we decided to walk the path down to meet our bus. It is only a 30 minute walk, and we were excited to see more of the mountain. Clouds, however, enveloped us again just after we had started down. We had a little fog, rain and sunshine. What a fantastic trip. D's co-worker was right. This was a "must-see."

Berchtesgaden, Germany

Ahh, the soul crushing traffic that is Europe in July. We had good music, food and water and good attitudes, which made all the difference. Unfortunately, we did have to stop to go to the bathroom and refuel the car once, which was an experience. The line to the womens' toilets was out the room, down the stairs and out the building. Naturally, there was no line for the mens' room. I would have bailed when I saw the line, but I REALLY had to go, and the way traffic was going, we weren't going to get there soon, no matter what our friend the Garmin was telling us.


But have no fear, we did finally arrive, and what a sight awaited us. We were privileged to be able to stay at the Hotel zum Tuerken, which not only survived the Allied bombing in 1945 but was also the only property successfully regained by the original owner. The hotel was confiscated during WWII by the Nazi's because of location - it was right next door to Hitler's mountain home called the Berghof (translated to the Mountain Farm). Hitler's security force was housed here and they successfully closed off the community to anyone but the SS elite. The current owner is the daughter of the woman who reclaimed the hotel after the war. She is a fantastic, energetic, hospitable woman. This is the first time I have really felt like I was staying in someone's home while in a hotel - in a good way. We stayed in the room on the right in the middle section that has a balcony.


This was the view from our balcony. We splurged to get the "Room with a View" and it was worth it; we spent as much time out there as we could. The mountain air was lovely.


This guard-post, surviving from WWII, stands at the front of the property. It suggests the architecture that lies beneath. Martin Bormann, Hitler's personal secretary and leader of the Party Chancellery, had bunkers built beneath the homes in the area to protect their high profile owners.


The great thing about where we were staying is that Frau Schaufenberg let us not only go down into the bunkers below the property, but also gave us permission to take as many pictures (for personal use) as we wanted. I included only this one picture out of respect for her (even though this blog is personal for us, we didn't want pictures to get out on the Internet that then we couldn't control.) We had the bunkers to ourselves and were amazed by how eery it felt being there. It was quiet and damp and remarkably well fortified. There were machine gun nests at every staircase, well enclosed with 3 machine guns per nest. There was one hole in the walls that was labeled as being made by a tank. It gave us a glimpse of the amount of rebar and cement used, and it is a serious structure. The most interesting sign was next to one bricked up doorway that led to the entrance of what was once Hitler's house. It was wet and cold and fascinating. Being able to walk in the footsteps of history adds a dimension of understanding impossible through just reading. We felt really privileged to get this chance.

As soon as we exited the bunkers, we saw this door across the street. This was one of the exits of said bunkers, either from the Hotel zum Tuerken or from one of the surrounding buildings that were destroyed.


We decided to take a hike on one of the many trails around our hotel next - after 5+ hours in the car it felt good to stretch our legs. (And the scenery was just fantastic.)


More bunker doors. We discovered later that once the buildings were destroyed, the Bavarian government leveled the area and quickly planted fast growing trees in order to avoid "Brown tourism," which is defined as people coming to glorify the Nazi officials and government previously based here. It was a little disconcerting just "stumbling" upon these, and I can appreciate the locals not wanting to encourage the wrong kind of site seeing.


I really love this pic of D. My mountain man.


We hiked up the mountain to the peak, where the Intercontinental Hotel currently resides, and soaked in the beautiful sky. Peaceful, relaxing, gorgeous, just what we needed. I could have just looked around for hours, everywhere you turned, it was another glorious village, farm or field. We even heard the cows - yes, heard, didn't see, they were wearing their cow bells, so fantastic.


And this is the view from the Intercontinental peak of Kehlsteinhaus, otherwise known as "The Eagle's Nest." (You can just make it out up at the top.) The building blends in exceptionally well with the terrain, which turns out to be a great advantage to the survival of the site. In 1945, the Royal Air Force (RAF - the British) bombed the SS community of Obersalzburg and intended to hit the Eagle's Nest as well. There are 2 theories why Kehlsteinhaus survived, one, that it blended into the terrain so well that the pilots couldn't see it in order to bomb it or, two, that the RAF was skilled at large target bombing and since the US Air Force were the small target specialists, they just missed. Option one is kinder. Either way, I am grateful that it remains.


The Eagle's Nest was a gift to Adolf Hitler from Martin Bormann and the Nazi party on his 50th birthday. It isn't a house, it doesn't have bedrooms. The intention of the building was to entertain and impress foreign dignitaries. The construction was a remarkable feat accomplished in only 13 months. There were considerable obstacles involved - the remote location, transportation needs to Obersalzburg (then, not to mention, up the mountain!), challenges regarding water and electricity, combating the weather, and so on. We enjoyed the our view until it became clear that we needed to hurry back to our hotel - once the sun goes down here, there are no street lamps and it gets dark, dark, dark. So, off to dinner and a good night's sleep and tomorrow, first thing, off to visit the top of the mountain and this remarkable feat of building.

The Romantic Road

One of D's coworkers had suggested going down to southern Germany and visit Berchtesgaden, and specifically, Hitler's mountain hideaway in that area. He said that it was a "must do" and since we were already predisposed to see it, we decided to go. The only problem was that we had only one available weekend left and not enough time to book a flight or train ticket that could be defined in any way as "reasonably priced." Therefore, not wanting to give up the prize, it became road-trip time. In order to break up the 9+ hours of driving (at least on the way down) we decided to find a half-point location to stay overnight. Würzburg fit the bill because it was 5 hours from BE and was described as "the pearl of the Romantic Road."


The Romantic Road (RR) is a stretch of highway between Würzburg and Füssen, Germany. The term was coined by travel agents sometime in the 1950's because it was thought by many international travelers to possess "quintessentially" German scenery and culture - meaning fabulous castles, medieval architecture, as well as traditional clothes, food, and fests. I had known about the RR but had never had the chance to visit it, so I was excited to check out the town.


We only had a short time in town so I picked a hotel in the center of the sites (well worth the extra money - big time and stress saver!) The Backoefele was the restaurant that we had dinner in - a fantastic, traditional meal, thankfully served late (traffic was a bit brutal, getting us there 1-2 hours later than anticipated.) [Side note: We are convinced that the entire country of The Netherlands empties out in July and everyone heads south. Although I am clearly exaggerating, the truth is that many Dutch companies close their doors in the month of July for holiday. Vacations are serious business here and people don't do weekenders - they pack-out their cars, attach a camper on the back and travel for a month.] The restaurant was highly rated in my guidebook and by the hotel, and it didn't disappoint. German food is not light, but it is delicious for those that like slowly cooked meat with dark gravies and lots of starch side dishes for which to clean your plate.

This poem was on the tile next to our table and I was excited because I understood it and thought that it helped convey the homey feeling of the restaurant. It says (roughly), "A cake with new wine you will find here fresh and fine."


We walked around after dinner and given that it was July 3rd, we were surprised and thrilled to stumble across a fireworks display. We watched on the bridge overlooking the castle (last pic) and river and felt like we were getting our own special Independence Day display. It was nice. We then headed home and fell into bed, exhausted.


The next morning, knowing that we only had a short time to enjoy the town before we had to hit the road, we mapped out a 1 hour walking tour to see the highlights of the town. This is the "Residence" which was the palace that the prince-bishops lived in until secularization abolished the episcopal principality of Würzburg in early 1800's. (Napolean had called this building the "nicest parsonage in Europe." Funny!) No fear, though, it didn't go uninhabited - the prince of Bavaria took up residence. It suffered tremendous damage in WWII but has been lovingly restore and was UNESCO World Heritage listed in 1981. We had no time to check out the inner beauty, we just reveled at her sexy exterior and moved on.


Nothing like a castle on a hill to give a town majestic beauty. The Marienberg Fortress had been built in the 13th century, but recent excavations suggest that there was a settlement here in the Iron Age, 3,000 years ago. Although we are almost always up for a good climb (and getting to the top to explore this castle counts as a solid one) we had no time so instead, we basked in the glow of the early sun on her walls and bid adieu, it was time to hit the road.