Eagles nest

Berchtesgaden is a very scenic town with more (the town, Königssee, Watzmann Therme, salt mine, Jennerbahn) than just the Eagles Nest to see. I stayed there for a few days and will again this Sept. If you stay in town and pay the Kur (visitor's) Tax (2,10€/P/nt), you should get a card good for free use of all the buses. One bus from the Hbf will take you to Obersalzberg, at the base of the Kehlstein (Mtn on which the E. N. is located.) From there you pay (16€) to take one of the special mountain buses up the private road to the parking lot below the Nest. The bus fare includes admission and use of the elevator that goes from the tunnel to inside the tea house. Back at the base of Kehlstein, at Obersalzberg, is a museum, the Dokumentation Center, that chronicles the Nazi rise to power, very worth seeing. You can also enter the system of tunnels that once connected the SS Headquarters in Salzberg with the vacation homes of the top Nazis, which were there. If you are staying in Salzburg, you can take the RVO bus (Watzmann Express) that leaves every hour from in front of the Salzburg Hbf. For 9,50€, you can buy a Tagesticket, which gives you not only the round trip from Salzburg to Berchtesgaden Hbf but unlimited use of the regular buses in Berchtesgaden. However, beware. The last bus back to Salzburg lease Berchtesgaden around 6 PM. If you want to stay later, take the train, which runs until about 10 PM. A Bayern-Ticket (sold at Salzburg Hbf, 22€ for 1, 26€ for two) covers the RT train through Freilassing plus all the regular buses in Berchtesgaden. Eagles Nest Tours offers tours from their office near the Berchtesgaden Hbf for 50€/P. That includes all transportation from their office.

We stayed in Salzburg in May of this year and took a day trip to Berchtesgaden. As Lee mentions above, we took the Watzmann Express bus from Salzburg Hbf to Berchtesgaden Hbf, had time for lunch at a nearby hotel, then took the Eagle's Nest Tour. It was probably the easiest way to visit the Obersalzburg Documentation Center and the Eagle's Nest (Kelsteinhaus). In addition, since the tour cost 50 Euro per person, but I think you would spend about 27 Euro if you did everything on your own, we felt it was worth the 23 Euro difference. I would highly recommend the Eagle's Nest Tours with two caveats: (1) One could spend hours in the Obersalzburg Documentation Center/Bunker Tour, but time there was somewhat limited; and (2) An Eagle's Nest Tour person insisted that the last bus back to Salzburg that day was at 19:15 and, even though I had read the bus schedule posted at the Hbf when we arrived and told them that I thought it was 18:15, they insisted on the former. So, assuming that maybe they knew something that I didn't, I trusted them on that. Well, after a post-tour visit to the Hofbrauhaus in Berchtesgaden, with the assumption that we had plenty of time to catch the last bus, we ended having to take a taxi (40 Euro) back to Salzburg because the last bus was indeed at 18:15. Moral of the story: Obey the posted schedule, as well as your instincts.

"we ended having to take a taxi (40 Euro) back to Salzburg" The last train back to Salzburg Hbf leaves Berchtesgaden just after 10 PM (2204).

True, but the train station was totally closed, no schedules posted, didn't know where to change trains, and it was 7:00 p.m. So, with 3 people, and only a 20 minute cab ride back to Salzburg, 40 Euro didn't sound too bad. What time do you think we would have arrived in Salzburg if we waited three hours more to catch a train? If I had anticipated taking the train back I would have researched the info, but we didn't plan to miss the return bus.