Berchtesgaden & Obersalzberg · Bavaria, Germany · October 2025
A grand old train station, a quiet forest full of history, and autumn colors everywhere in between.
GERMANYOn October 17, 2025, Philipp and I spent the day in Berchtesgaden. We started at the town's beautiful old train station, then went up to the Obersalzberg, the mountainside above town where Hitler's Berghof once stood. Today it's mostly quiet forest, but if you look closely, the past is still there under the leaves.
Our day, step by step
- Station The Berchtesgaden Hauptbahnhof and its murals
- Climb Up to the Obersalzberg
- See The Hotel zum Türken
- Walk Forest trails past old walls and a bunker door
- View A clearing looking out over the valley
Berchtesgaden Hauptbahnhof
Berchtesgaden's main station is no ordinary train station. The railway from Freilassing arrived in 1888, and the big building you see today opened in 1940. Outside, a row of heavy stone arches runs along the front under tall windows and a golden clock. The station is still busy: trains run to Freilassing via Bad Reichenhall, and buses leave from right out front.
Step inside and look up. The hall has a dark wooden ceiling and a huge painted mural by the local artist Maria Harrich, from the early 1950s. On one side, salt miners in white uniforms march with their flag; on the other, villagers in traditional dress celebrate with a decorated cow. In the middle sits a carved wooden clock ringed with zodiac signs, and the banner below says "Besucht das Berchtesgadner Salzbergwerk": visit the Berchtesgaden salt mine. It's basically a 70-year-old tourism ad, and it's wonderful.
The little details are just as good. The signs to the platforms and the market are in old metal Fraktur lettering, a wrought-iron table stands by the wall, and the doors are framed in reddish marble.
A note before you read on
We visited the Obersalzberg for historical and educational reasons only: to see with our own eyes where this history happened, and to remember its victims. We do not support or glorify the Nazi regime, its ideology or anything connected to it in any way. Places like this matter because they remind us what must never happen again.
The Obersalzberg and the Hotel zum Türken
From town we went up to the Obersalzberg. In the 1930s the Nazi leadership took over this mountainside, forced out the people who lived here and built Hitler's Berghof and a whole compound around it. The Berghof was bombed in April 1945, and its ruins were blown up in 1952.
One building that survived is the Hotel zum Türken, right next to where the Berghof stood. Its owner, Karl Schuster, was forced to sell and leave in 1933, and the building became a guard headquarters with a bunker underneath. His family got it back after the war and ran it as a hotel for decades. It has been closed since 2019, and it's private property, so we only looked from the road.
Into the woods
A small path leaves the road and climbs into the forest. It doesn't look like much at first, just beech trees, yellow leaves and moss. But then you notice things: a long concrete wall half hidden between the trees, patches of old concrete under the leaves where a path or driveway used to be, and a heavy steel door set into the hillside, the entrance to a bunker. It's eerie how peaceful it all is now.
A clearing above the valley
The trail opens up to a flat clearing with a wide view across the valley to the mountains, framed by orange and yellow trees. The clouds hung low on the peaks that day. We each took a turn standing there, and then we took the path back down to the road.
Tip: to understand what you're looking at up here, visit the Dokumentation Obersalzberg, the history center on the mountain. And please respect the private property signs.
Good to know
- The station
- Berchtesgaden Hauptbahnhof, with trains to Freilassing via Bad Reichenhall and a bus station out front
- Don't miss
- The Maria Harrich mural and zodiac clock inside the station hall
- Obersalzberg
- The mountainside above town, where the Berghof stood until it was destroyed
- Hotel zum Türken
- Closed since 2019 and private property. View it from the road.
- Wear
- Real shoes. The forest trails are steep, rooty and covered in leaves.
Have you been to the Obersalzberg?
Tell me in the comments, or send me a question if you're planning a trip to Berchtesgaden.
