Hitler's Birthday Present

After our wonderful cultural exchange with Roland's family in the Austrian Alps, Andy and I finally reached one of the places that we wanted to go during our European travels. Berchtesgaden being the home of Adolf Hitler's famous Eagle's nest was a place for the Third Reich leaders for their retreats away from any of the WWII events. Eagle's nest was built by the Nazi party as a 50th birthday present for Adolf in 1939 at the top of the mountain overlooking Berchtesgaden. The views themselves shows endless opportunities to see the larger than life landscapes, clouds, rain, sunshine, and of course breathing the fresh air that the Bavarian mountains have to offer.

The Kehlsteinhaus also known as Hitler's Tea House or the Eagle's Nest, is a chalet-style building, which used to be an extension of the Obersalzberg complex built by the Nazi's in the German Alps near Berchtesgaden.

The Kehlsteinhaus was built as a 50th birthday present for Adolf Hitler. The Eagle's Nest was meant to be a retreat for Hitler and a place for him to entertain visiting dignitaries. It was commissioned by Martin Bormann, with construction proceeding over a 13-month period prior to its formal presentation to Hitler in 1939. It is situated on a ridge at the top of the Kehlstein mountain (1835 m), reached by a spectacular 6.5 km (3.9 mile) road which cost 30 million Reichsmark to build (~ 150 million euros). The last 124 metres up to the Kehlsteinhaus are served by an elevator bored inside the mountain, reached via a granite tunnel; the elevator itself is surfaced with polished brass. The main reception room is dominated by a fireplace of red Italian marble, presented by Mussolini. Much of the furniture was designed by Paul Laszlo.

Although the site is on the same mountain as the Berghof, Hitler rarely visited the property. It has been suggested he only visited the Kehlsteinhaus around 10 times, and most times for no more than 30 minutes. It was perhaps because of this lack of close association with Hitler, the property was saved from demolition at the end of the war. It was subsequently used by the Allies as a military command post until 1960, when it was handed back to the State of Bavaria.

Source: Wikipedia

Click here to view the Passionate Traveler's photos in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

A weekend of memories...

After visiting the Austrian capital of Vienna, Andy and I have made promises to visit our police officer friend Roland in the southern region of Villach. Villach is a mountainous town like Canmore, Alberta residing at the base of many of Austria's Bavarian mountains. Roland has gotten a day off from his work on Friday and we have plans to meet him at the local train station from our morning long journey through the whole country and then into Bavaria. We have spent the day catching up and then eventually drove north to see his sister and his parents who live in the hills in a traditional style Austrian Bavarian house.

Their family were excited to meet us and have given us a place to sleep for the weekend. Over the course of the next few days, we had many exciting things to see such as climbing a couple of mountains, taking a tour on the diagonal mountain train which later took us through 1.5 km into a mountain resembling a hotel-cafe mountain house up high on the plateau. This was indeed a fresh air quiet beautiful area in which the three of us had lunch and celebrated peace and great friendships.

Another day we had a chance to take an elevator up on a very high communication tower which lets people see the whole region and the towns / farmland / mountains the filled the valley views. It certainly felt like it was being on the top of the world. Later after suffering from mild reddish sunburns, we found a nice spot on the beach of a huge lake which provided a refreshing swim and a chance to show off from the swimming diving board into the lake.

Roland's family was great as his mother and father provided us with home cook meals with lots of local food such as cheese and sausage meat. We even had the chance to walk and drive around checking out the marvelous landscapes that made Villach a lively beautiful Bavarian place to live.

It was sure a great weekend of memories and I will never forget the times I have spent with everyone there and got a chance to know them on a personal level. I hope one day that I will have free time to visit everyone again.

Click here to view the pictures from Villach and the southern region of Austria...

Street Food in Vietnam

I have found an interesting comment on the social website facebook with respect to the street food which makes one of biggest Vietnam's charms to the world.

Sadly enough I heard through the social website that all the street food vendors in Hoi An have been eliminated and the other cities are expected to follow:

Health Ministry to get tough on food hygiene

08/06/2007 -- 8:35 PM

Ha Noi (VNA) – The Health Ministry (MoH) is planning a nation-wide crack down on food safety violators and the building of standards for food hygiene in general, said a Health Ministry official.

At the top of the list of a new MoH plan is a public awareness campaign on food safety, to be followed by a system to manage food hygiene, a programme to analyse the risks of food pollution, a system to examine food poisoning and food transmitted diseases, a greater number of food inspections and the doling out of stricter punishments to violators.

The country's medical sector is also expected to become a major contributor to the initiative by boosting scientific research and application of hygiene standards in the area.

The new directives come hard on the heels of the recent detection of carcinogenic found in brands of soy sauce sold in markets across the country.