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Our plan for this day was to find the best alpine driving roads and end up somewhere outside of Salzburg. We had read several Bimmerfester’s accounts of Berchtesgaden so that was our tentative destination. Before we left for the day, we had to take advantage of the great pastry shops that we had seen all over Munich. As we were leaving, we noticed that the Munich government had good taste in cars.

Just to show that I actually went on this trip, here is a picture of me beside the car as we approached the Alps.

Here is a neat vista beside a lake that was along our route we took (I think this was along the 305).

We climbed up in the mountains a bit as we approached Berchtesgaden and as soon as we drove into town, we knew this was the spot to stay. It was absolutely stunning.

This is the quintessential Alps town that everyone imagines with dozens of “GastHaus” which are like little bed and breakfast family run hotels. Many restaurants to choose from as well as some interesting architecture and churches to see. We found an incredible place called Hotel Wittelsbach to stay for only 74 Euros for the night (on a Friday night no less). This was the view from the balcony right off of our bedroom.

After we were situated with a place to sleep, we went and grabbed a beer and dinner at one of the restaurants in town overlooking the valley.

This is what can happen when you mix high altitude and german beer.

We were anxious to drive so we got off to a somewhat early start. We started with a short trip to Dachau, which is right outside of Munich. This was the concentration camp that all of the others were modeled after. As you enter the camp you go through the gates that many of the holocaust victims saw: “Work Brings Freedom”

We walked through the museum that gave a bit of history about the rise to power of the Nazis and the history of the camp. It was interesting to see how quickly things escalated both with the war and the camp. We passed this memorial scuplture that had been put in the courtyard that had several different symbolic meanings.

As you walked the grounds, they still had several of the “barracks” standing with mock-ups of how the living quarters were set up for the camp inhabitants. In the following picture you can see these barracks in the distance and along the tree lined paths there used to be 20 of them.

Dachau was a sobering place to visit and reminded us of what can happen when one man is given too much power. And it obviously made us examine parallels in today’s times.

From Dachau, we headed down and picked up the Romantic Road at Landsberg am Lech (which is a beautiful city that pops up right around a corner as you are driving). We followed this twisty road from small town to small town with beautiful countryside along the way. It was neat coming around a bend and seeing the Alps in the distance.

As we got closer to the mountains, we stopped to take some pictures of the car and scenery. Even with the Alps in the distance it was still warm enough for a little convertible driving.

Here is a pic of Craddock in the car with Schloss Neuschwanstein in the distance.

We arrived at Neuschwanstein at near closing time, so we just parked and took the horse carriage up to the top. We just walked around the outside, but it is a very impressive place.

There is another castle right “next door” to this one, but we didn’t have time to get too much of a closer look.

From here, we headed back to Munich on the non scenic route and arrived just after dark. A couple more german beers and we were out for an early night. Since the next day we check out and head deeper into the Alps, we were going to try and get an early start.