Fog and freezing

The fog at Intercont Berchtesgaden was in June, now it's freezing cold down here, -8.3° C, and probably -15° up there (1,000m or 3,000ft. above sea level), around one foot of snow, and a bright blue sky to be expected once sun comes up.

Beautiful place to have a hotel built, yet if it were not for the dark past, see below, this is just in the middle of nowhere. Just mountains around and great views, plus the documentation centre at Obersalzberg, and – from May through October – the bus departure to the Eagle's Nest on top of Kehlstein mountain.

Obersalzberg documentation (reportedly the largest permanent exhibition on the Nazi period, and a very good one), in the background Untersberg.

In 1928, when Hitler first rented a chalet not far from here, one of his reasons was the view of Untersberg, a myth-laden mountain. Legend has it that in one of the huge caves of this limestone mountain there is eather emperor Charlemagne or Frederick I, Hohenstaufen emperor in the 12th century, sitting at a stone table in a death-like sleep. Only when the ravens quit circling the mountain and his beard has grown seven times around the stone table the emperor will awake, gather his army and in a huge battle at Walserfeld (a plain in the area around Salzburg airport) will erect a realm of Christ on earth.

A myth that goes back to the late middle ages when Christians were still awaiting a return of Christ and a 1000 year empire on earth before doomsday. It was not a dangerous one before the Nazis grabbed hold of it to legitimate their own "Thousand year empire".