Tuesday 31st July - The Eagles Nest

Morning brought us another friend, this time Marvin the mouse! We left out a loaf of bread last night which now had the corner nibbled off all the way down.  He was trying to get into the cool bag but thankfully that was too much for him.  He was very cute though, but once we'd all been introduced we scared him away.

It was off to the Eagles nest today, to see where Hitler had been, to walk where he had walked.
Rich was incredibly overexcited, once we'd finally found somewhere to park the van, we got our bus tickets and had 20 mins to browse the souvenir shop (great marketing!)
Rich was skipping about like something out of Monty Python!
We boarded the buses for the steep winding road up to the eagles nest.  It was on this journey that we realised why they don't allow the public to drive up.  Not only was it too narrow for 2 vehicles but it required  a professional driver to get up there, a 100 ft drop on one side, cliff face on the other.
On arrival at the top we went down a long cold arched hallway to the brass elevator (kids were very disappointed it wasn't a glass elevator but that'll teach them to listen properly!) which took you 142m up to the eagles nest.
We spent an hour climbing around on the rocks, up to the highest points above the eagles nest, finding cold caves and generally messing about.
It was way past lunch so we decided to splash out on a meal at the restaurant (although could have been that there was simply no room at the outdoor cafe) it was delicious!
During the meal we discovered a keyhole in the wall, perhaps a secret Nazi cupboard? (or maybe just a place to store the napkins?)

We got the bus back down and finally Rich was calm again.
All of us were hot and bothered so we decided to go to an outdoor pool, this was different though it was more like  lake with diving boards, great rock and logs or just a beach to get in from.  It had slides and water fountains and even a wooden bridge, the kids had an amazing time just jumping in and out of it, we could easily have spent an entire day there!

We stayed until they closed up then headed back to the tent.  This time decided to pack away most of the stuff before we went to bed.
Great idea!