In the town of Berchtesgaden one of the major attractions is the salt mine. I'm imagining that it is so popular because in omnipresent rain and fog a trip down to the mine isn't affected by the weather. The day we went was incredibly crowded, but the lovely manager of the lodge got us reservations so we didn't have to wait forever with the teeming masses. We donned our overalls, learned that the pockets were only holes in the jumpsuits, and prepared to descend. The tour begins with everyone getting onto the train. Essentially you are straddling a bench with a railing on one side and open air on the other. This is a rather interesting way to travel down a narrow tunnel, seeing as how the walls of the tunnel are only a few feet away and if you stuck a knee or hand out you could really do some damage to yourself. The consensus of the group was that this sort of thing would never fly in the States without serious waiver-signing, seat belts and some sort of safety cage. We slid down old wooden slides (like sliding down a long banister with a level spot at the end to allow slowing down), watched how salt is mined, and rode across a large saline lake on a silent cable-driven barge. The barge was open at one end, which made me nervous until Isaac cheerfully pronounced that in a 70% saline lake whoever fell overboard would simply float like a cork.
This was one of those tours which I thought would be uninteresting, but it turned out to be quite fun and informative!
Outside, the river was really just this aqua. More than one of our traveling companions commented that it reminded them of the tropics. I'll have to take their word for it.
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