Salzburg, Austria

Friday, 10 August We arrived into Austria aruond 2pm and it was a little colder here in the mountains... about 14 degrees.

We checked into the campsite which was pretty close to the city and convenient, but didnt have any guest kitchen... so we couldnt cook any of the food we'd purchased to cook for dinner and brekfast, so ended up going into town instead. It was a god thing we did 'cause we ended up having a really beautiful dinner in town for pretty cheap, had Wiener Schnitzel.

Afterwards we saw heaps of Mercedes Maybachs (worth about AU$3 million each) everywhere in the city with people dressed up to the nines, then we caught a Mercedes taxi home to our humble little campsite....

Saturday, 11 August We headed out of Austria and into Germany to Berchtesgaden, which is the area where Hitler made his home when he was away from Berlin and Munich. We saw some of the old buildings which had survived the bombing including the special train platform which was built especially for Hitler's carriage... much larger than the other platform. During Hitlers time there were some 90 buildings on the mountain which the Third Reich took possession of. It was on Olbersalzberg "The Mountain" where Hitler planned such great tragedies and great miseries caused to many persons. It was here on the mountain where the biggest decisions were made by hitler, to invate and take over Austria, to invade Czech Republic and take over Poland and go up against Russie.

The SS acquired 108kms of land forcing home owners to leave their homes. We learnt that hitler spent around 3 months out of every year up on this mountain. The area Hitler actually made his home was bombed completely and no longer there but we were able to see where it would have been located and the magnificent views he would have enjoyed overlooking Burchesgarden. We also went underground to the 6.1kms of underground bunkers. After this we went further up the mountain to the Eagles Nest which was built especially for Hitler as a tea room. It was built using skilled paid workers including italian stonemasons. It cost US$140 million to build including the roads to lead up to it. Hitler only used this tea room 14 times, so it makes it a very expensive tea house. Ava Brown (Hitler's girlfriend, come wife) used it much more often and entertained her cousins, sisters, etc. We sat in the tea room and had a cup of tea and cake. When we headed back to Salzburg it was pouring rain again, so we headed to the city to find a dry place to eat and drink. We treated ourselves to some gourmet fine finger food at Carpe Diem (the owner is the person who invented red bull) where we ate buluga caviar in little ice cream cones with champagne. At night it bucked down raining again (WHAT IS IT ABOUT RAIN WHEN WE PITCH A TENT!!) We kept getting woken up by the Apples falling off the apple trees around us too.Sunday, 12 AugustIn the morning we headed to Hellbrunn Palace where we walked through the trick fountains... it was lightly raining so it didnt matter that we got a little more wet... it was pretty cool; it is always a good laugh watching other people getting wet! After this we headed up to Festung Hohensalzberg - a big fortress right up on top of a huge rock mountain in the middle of the city. Outside we enjoyed some amazing views of Salzburg and inside there were all different sorts of museums/galleries ...... history overload so we only did a couple of the museums and headed back to the campsite to get ready to go out that night. That night we headed to the oldest Restaurant in Europe to a Mozart Dinner Concert and got ourselves a dose of culture. It was actually quite enjoyable. There were 3 violins, a cello and a double bass and 2 opera singers (one male & one female) singing Don Giovanni's Mozart rendition in between entree, main and desert. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Afterwards we saw heaps of Mercedes Maybachs (worth about AU$3 million each) everywhere in the city with people dressed up to the nines, then we caught a Mercedes taxi home to our humble little campsite.....Monday, 13 AugustIn the morning we did a little shopping in town as I (Michelle( saw an awesome pair of shoes that I couldn't resist. After this we headed to Bled, Slovenia.