The Scroop's European Holiday: Salzburg

There are roadworks in progress beneath our apartment window and this morning we were woken at 4:30am by road workers delivering major machinery to the street. The noise was so load that it was vibrating the apartment. It baffles me that 2:30pm does not seem to be an appropriate time for a restaurant or brewery to be open for lunch but 4:30 in the morning is the perfect time to deliver heavy machinery to a residential street! Anyway, we eventually get out of bed at 6:30 because we need to be at a meeting spot on the other side of the old town at 8:15am for our tour and the weather has turned feral. It is very cloudy and raining. We are unsure of how long it will take to walk to the meeting point so we set out at 7:30. We arrive about 20 minutes early and wait. The small 8 seater shuttle bus arrives on time and the driver forgets to put the handbrake on. While we were getting in the bus it starts to roll back down the slope. I alert the driver then have to run behind the bus to try and stop it from rolling back out onto the street. The driver eventually gets the handbrake on and any potential tragedy is averted. We get moving and when we eventually get to the coach at around 8:30 we realize that we have pretty much gone in a circle and we're about 5 minutes walk from our apartment. We have just spent an hour getting to the coach which was 5 minutes away. We jump on the coach and Tyler secures us front row seats so we are pretty stoked. The coach starts moving just before 9am and our tour guide, Walter, is fantastic cracking very dry one liner jokes. The coach starts making its way to Kehlsteinhaus or the Eagles Nest and this was something we wanted to do when we visited Munich 2 years ago but due to circumstances out of our control never got the opportunity. We drive through Salzburg and as soon as we hit the German border, which is about 20 minutes in, the mountains just jump out at you and the scenery becomes amazing. We start the ascent up the Obersalzberg mountain side in the coach until we hit the change over where every needs to get out of the coach and change to smaller buses. These buses then continue the climb up the mountain and the drive is hairy. We drive close to the edge of the mountain with sheer drops off the edge of the road. The views are incredible and the drive up is amazing. When we reach the top we jump off the bus and take the walk through the tunnel to the famous brass elevator that pops us out on top of the mountain inside Kehlsteinhaus. The elevator is in its original condition to how it was when Hitler had it installed. The views on top are unbelievable and we are lucky because the weather has held off long enough for us to get pics. We climb up to where a cross was installed in 1951 and by the time we start the walk back down the weather has closed in and the views are gone. It was freezing up there too. This was truly an amazing experience and if the rest of the tour is crap then it was worth it just to see this. We do it all again in reverse and make our way back down to the coach. The clouds have cleared enough to allow for amazing views on the way down to our coach. We continue on to Berchtesgaden for lunch. Berchtesgaden is a small village at the base of the Obersalzberg Mountain and it is very pretty. We have a bite to eat and a look around before boarding our coach again for the short drive to the Salt Mine tour. When we enter the salt mine everyone has to put on overalls before jumping on this little train that takes us through a very small and long tunnel into the underground mine. It was a fantastic ride and the kids loved it. We jump off the train and then we have to slide down this very long and steep wooden slide. Kris and I and the kids are all linked together as we zoom down this slide to the bottom. We continue on walking through the mine with a German guide and we come to anther wooden slide. At the bottom of the slide was a little boat ride across an underwater lake and as we are crossing they put on this awesome light show. We take a lift back up the mine and back on the little train to take us out. It was a fantastic tour and the kids have had a great time. The coach comes to collect us to take us to Konigssee. Konigssee is a little town on a huge lake with mountains either side. Unfortunately the weather has become worse and the rain is as persistent as ever. We go for a half hour walk along the lake before turning back to get on the coach again. The coach takes us back to Berchtesgaden for afternoon tea before continuing on back to Salzburg. We arrive back a Salzburg around 6 o'clock and it has been an amazing day. It was a real adventure and a whole lot of fun today and we make the 5 minute walk home feeling really good. On the way home we notice that the Italian restaurant/Pizzeria is open so Kris ducks in and makes a reservation. We head upstairs to our apartment to shower and change and then back downstairs again at 7:30 for dinner. The restaurant is tiny and only seats about 15 people but the owner is Italian who doesn't speak much English and his daughter is waiting tables. The food is fantastic and the best pizza we have had on the holiday so far. We spend a while there before booking a reservation for tomorrow night and heading back upstairs to call it a night.

*Have been experiencing issues with the WiFi and can't upload all posts or photo's at the moment*