Day 4 Berchtesgaden and the Salt Mine by Hallie Moore

May 29^th

Berchtesgaden city tour and Salt mine tour

Today we all headed out via bus and drove into town.  Gabriele, our tour guide, gave us a splendid tour of Berchtesgaden.  She took us up to a religious site that gave us a flawless view of the city.  Here she told us about Berchtesgaden’s rich history and about the importance of the salt mine.  We also walked through part of the city and looked at the big church. After we finished our tour we had a little bit of time in the square to eat our lunches and enjoy the sunshine.  We found delicious ice cream in the main square. I had Spaghetti Eis. It was absolutely delicious. 

After our little break we walked to the salt mine. There was a bit of time before our tour so Mary and I went on an adventure up the mini mountain behind the salt mine building. It was a nice little hike. When we returned, Mary used German to talk to someone and ask if she could pet their dog. She also found out the dog’s name. His name was Sydney. Then we went on the tour. We had to put on these black jumpsuits with reflective tape on them. Then we took this train thing through tiny tunnels. We also got to go down big wooden slides. It was pretty cool. The most remarkable part of the mine was when we saw the mirror lake. At first our reaction wasn’t too great. We thought, “Wow. A giant room with a pit in it.” Then we saw a boat sitting in the “pit” and were slightly confused. It turned out that there was really a pool of perfectly still water that was flawlessly mirroring the ceiling and walls of the room. It was beautiful.  We went back to the hostel and eventually ended up in bed.

This was the religious site at the top of the steep hill where we learned the most about Berchtesgaden's history. 

This was the square in Berchtesgaden where we had ice cream. 

This is the wall outside of the salt mine that says, in english, If all of the rivers are sweet then where does the salt in the sea come from?