Berchtesgaden

After going to the Königssee and exploring Berchtesgaden National Park I made my way to the town of Berchtesgaden. The weather was grey and ugly, and after driving in the glorious mountains all day the town couldn’t stand a chance scenery-wise, but it was cute. And I had a couple of hours to kill before I went to Sara's so I took some photos.

Sara is a girl I connected with on Couch Surfing.com and it was my first experience using the service, so I was a little nervous when I arrived, but that lasted about 30 seconds. She and her roommates were really cool and I felt comfortable immediately. Sara made us a great dinner, then we drank a lot of beer and wine as we laughed and joked and just had a blast. Then later on, after we were liquored up, we danced around the kitchen like fools. There's video of this out there, too, God help me. But man, we had such a great time! The next morning I was sad to leave, but I had to get to Salzburg. Also, the sun finally came out. I really hope to meet them again because we had so much fun. What great people!





Apparently, there's a day when people dress up like this and go around gently whipping children with twigs. But I can't remember the whole story or reasoning behind it:










After I left, I did a little more exploring in the area in hopes to get some better photos than the day before. Also, I wanted to see the "sleeping witch", which is a ridge on the mountain that looks like a witch reclining. I drove to the little town that it's clearly visible from and asked a random person on the street where to look and sure enough, there she was! That's another great thing about Couch Surfing: finding out about little things like that that don't appear on the maps or in tour guides.

The drive to Salzburg was beautiful and the weather stayed nice for a few hours, but then it turned again. Thankfully I got some great photos in the mountains before I left.

The sleeping witch:













Next entry: Salzburg! Stay tuned!