Paulsen family year abroad: Eagles Nest, Salt Mine tour, Sunday Mass, Steigl brewery

9/28: We drove to Obersalzburg to visit the Eagles Nest where Hitler and the Nazi party spent 10+ years. There is a very large museum where we spent 3 hours listening to our audio guides detailing so much history. It is a powerful place.

One piece I found so intriguing was the level of planning the photographers took to stage photos. They took great care to place people and items in specific places in a photo for propaganda purposes. Sometimes photos were edited and people removed who had fallen out of favor with Hitler. The editing techniques back then were primitive, and once the person was removed someone had to paint the background into the photo. Other times people were added to a photo, and you might only notice because the child in front is wearing a white summer dress, but the man in the back was wearing a wool coat.

We were able to walk underground in the bunkers with sophisticated ventilation systems, and tour an exhibit devoted to the life and story of Albert Speer who was convicted at the Nuremberg Trials and served 20 years in prison.

We drove to Berchtesgaden where we took a tour of a Salt Mine. Salt was discovered in these mountains 500+ years ago, and brought great wealth to the area.

130 meters underground!

We rode on this train behind us, then took two different slides into the mine.

We took the kids home after our full day, and drove downtown to the only grocery store that was open until 7:30pm. There was nowhere to park, so I left Bob in the car while I found the grocery within the train station. It was a small store that was absolutely jammed with people. This made more sense to me the next day (Sunday) when we discovered all stores (grocery, retail, barbers, etc) are closed on Sundays!

Pizza dinner with The Sound of Music on the iPad :-)

9/29: Bob and I went on a run early, and then went to Mass at the Salzburg cathedral.

We drove to Konigssee for a hike while the kids got ahead on work, as we knew that once we got to Munich it would be more challenging to get work done. We came home, grabbed the kids for a walk around Salzburg and HH at the Steigl brewery. Everything else is closed on Sunday!