Globetrotter: Eagle’s nest, Salzburg

Before I even knew which country Salzburg was in, the place meant only one thing for me – the von Trapp family from Sound of Music! This was when I was in the sixth grade. Years later I was able to actually sing and jump around like a maniac at the very place where one of my all time favorite movie was shot. And the fact that it was shot in one of the most picturesque cities in Europe and not some lame studio was just icing on the cake! Austria has the world’s most well maintained cities… I swear!Instead of staying in the city, we stayed in a quaint little spa town called Bad Reichenhall (in Germany), which is 20min away from Salzbburg (which is Austria). We were country hopping between Germany and Austria during our entire stay, and waking up to gorgeous views like the one below.

After breakfast ( of bread rolls, yogurt, eggs and lots of fresh fruit) it was off to Eagle’s nest. It’s a far away place in Germany and is a mountain home of Adolf Hitler. Its called ‘Eagle’s nest’ in english, probably because its only access point is through a tunnel and then an elevator through a 2000meter mountain.

You reach the base point where the tunnel starts by bus, and you reach the bus stop by car.
Tip: It’s best if you travel by road in Europe. Although definitely more expensive than trains, the roads are amazing, the scenery is breathtaking, you’ll never feel exhausted for the long hours spent sitting in the car, you can cover more number of places, you can stop wherever and whenever you like (our stop at this spa town was impromptu.. we loved what we saw and decided to spend a couple of days here before heading to Salzburg)…. and you’ll thank me for all this!

And I just can’t get over how green the grass is. For some reason each time time I see a stretch of grass like this, I picture a dozen white horses galloping (90’s bollywood influence)

There’s a short and really enjoyable trek to the top of the mountain amidst the ever present clouds (pic below). Although our innumerable stops for photos made it considerably longer.

After that it was back to base in the bus down a long winding road. We could learn a thing or two about driving skills from these guys. Honestly, the speed at which he was going downhill, I was amazed we dint drop down the cliff.

We really wanted to go on the Sound of Music tour but since it was already late it was closed for the day. After a lot of asking around and noses glued to maps, we managed to find a couple of places at least! Our whole family used to sit together and watch this movie (so many times) that it sort of became a tradition. So we had to see at least a couple of the places if not all.