A gay romp with Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden

Since setting foot in Berchtesgaden on Monday, we have struggled to get "Springtime for Hitler" out of our heads. When we do, our heads are filled with other songs from The Producers and before we know it we're back at Springtime again. We have sung it, we have listened to it, we have talked about it. Nothing will work. And it's a little awkward when you start randomly singing lyrics such as "don't be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi party" out loud at Hitler's mountain retreat.

While Hitler may have taken over the region during the war, the natural beauty of the place does enough to detract your attention from the area's sinister past. Our first outing in Berchtesgaden was a boat trip on Königsee, an emerald lake surround by steep cliffs 5km south of Berchtesgaden. As Matt and and I were the last to buy our tickets and last to get on, we were separated for the first half of the trip. Unfortunately the tour guide only spoke in German and, as I was unable to translate for Matt at the other end of the boat, he stared out the window while the passengers listened and laughed away. From the audiences's reaction, the guide was hilarious. I barely got any of what he said anyway so wouldn't have been much help to Matt.

Halfway along the lake the Captain stopped the boat, walked to the middle, and played the Flüglehorn out of the window towards Echo Rock. With each phrase the captain played it repeated perfectly. It was quite enchanting. We then docked at St Bartholomä, a monastery halfway along the lake and enjoyed a warm drink inside. After a relaxing boat trip back to our car, we then headed up the mountains on our steepest drive yet to stay for the night on a little farm in Oberau, overlooking Berchtesgadenland.

The next morning we woke to a glorious day. The sun was out and it wasn't all that cold. We drove the short distance to Obersalzburg and headed up Mt Kehlstein to Eagle's Nest, Hitler's mountain retreat. Hitler was a big fan of Berchtesgaden and seized a lot of the area for his own use. In Obersalzburg Hitler built the southern headquarters of the NSDAP. It was mostly flattened following the war (only a small part now houses a museum) but Eagle's Nest was left strangely unscathed due to it's minimal association with the dictator. Eagle's Nest, called Kehlsteinhaus in German, was built for Hitler's 50th birthday in 13 months by 3000 men as a gift from the Nazi party for him to entertain dignitaries and relax. Despite all the effort, Hitler is said to have only visited 10 times with most visits lasting only 30 minutes.

The road up is a private access route and can only be done by bus. A few minutes in and it's not hard to see why. It is very steep, very windy and there is nowhere to park at the top. The bus stops right underneath a cliff, on top of which the house sits precariously on the edge. From there we walked through a long, dark and cold stone tunnel and got into an elegant brass clad lift which took us the remaining 124m and delivered us right into the house. It would have been impossible for Hitler's visitors to not be intimidated.

Before going in we set off on a walk further up the mountain. It had been snowing and the wet snow and ice meant it was slow going. Luckily there was a railing for a majority of the way so I clung quite firmly to that. The few from the top was amazing - on one side lay Berchtesgaden, the Königsee and towering German mountain ranges, and on the other Salzburg and the surrounding Austrian towns and fields. We took a few quiet moments to nestle in amongst the snow covered rocks and just sit and be still.

After the cold became too much to bear we headed inside to warm up and feed our grumbling bellies. The house is now home to a restaurant with Hitler's office serving as a store room for the cafeteria. After a while of enjoying the warmth and good food it suddenly dawned on me where we were sitting- I had completely forgotten why this building was built. We had a discussion about whether or not Hitler would have had a portrait of himself above the fireplace.

A short trip back down the mountain saw us returned to our van where we spent some time reading and relaxing with a first class view. From here we popped across the border and drove the short distance to Salzburg.

Before leaving Germany I did a bit of research into some campgrounds we could stay at and settled on the competitively cheap 'Campingplatz Nord-Sam' in the north of the town near the motorway. I directed Matt down the very narrow Samstraße, and we rounded the bend to find the campsite closed, with a makeshift fence across the entrance. A little further down the road there was a truck with a crane on it set up doing repairs to a roof. This truck was blocking the street to the point at which only very small cars could get through. The gap was far too small for us to get through and the street too narrow to do a u-turn in. Not to mention we were now blocking the street ourselves, and cars were queuing up behind us.

I jumped out of the car and signalled to the cars behind us to back up, so Matt could reverse, but they would have had to back up over 500 metres to get us out, and more cars were joining the queue.

At this point a man emerged from the reception hut at the closed campsite, who I begged in English to let us come in and turn around. He reluctantly let us in after seeing our predicament, explaining that demand was so low that he had had to close the campsite on weekdays. Matt performed an 8 point U-turn while the campsite owner directed me to a new site.

We extricated ourselves from Samstraße and arrived just in time to watch the sunset over the city from our spot at the aptly named Panorama Camping.