You step onto the minivan and the city falls away — alpine road cuts through spruce and limestone, air sharpened by altitude. The drive toward Obersalzberg climbs past memory-laden slopes where concrete bunkers and foundations mark a fraught chapter of the 20th century. A specially equipped mountain bus then threads a 4-mile road with pitches up to 27% to the Kehlstein plateau. From there, a 124m tunnel and the original brass elevator push you into the Eagle’s Nest, where the panorama reads like a geological atlas: karst ridges, ribbon lakes and the granite face of the Dachstein catching late light.