Get to know Berchtesgaden through its townscape, crafts, national park topics and salt mining. When choosing accommodation for your stay, you can weigh these highlights against one another: a walk through the center offers a different focus from an exhibition or the visitor route in the salt mine.

Historic Town Center, Crafts and Garden

A walk through the historic center of Berchtesgaden takes you past the splendid façades of townhouses, numerous fountains, narrow lanes and large squares. The lanes and squares shape the route just as much as the façades and fountains. The Museum Schloss Adelsheim focuses on Berchtesgaden’s traditional crafts: exhibits include ivory carvings, turned wooden filigree boxes, elaborately decorated chipwood boxes and lovingly painted toys. The different materials and crafts offer another way to experience the town, beyond looking at its streets and squares.

The historic spa gardens of Berchtesgaden offer another design style: laid out in the formal French style, they feature reflecting pools, fountains and rows of Japanese cherry trees. This gives you three distinct interests to consider when planning: the historic townscape, handcrafted objects and a formally designed garden.

House of the Mountains and National Park Topics

The House of the Mountains is the central starting point for a visit to Berchtesgaden National Park. Its permanent exhibition, “Vertical Wilderness,” presents the national park’s flora and fauna interactively, organized by seasons and habitats. This connects nature topics with a structure based on time and habitat: visitors interested in the landscape encounter both seasonal changes and the national park’s different habitats.

Salt Mining and Trails through Berchtesgaden

The visitor route at the Berchtesgaden Salt Mine includes an underground mine train, a miners’ slide and a boat ride across the underground salt lake. The history of mining began in 1517 with the opening of the Petersberg tunnel. This places the individual stops along the visitor route alongside a specific historical starting point for the story of mining.

The trails also offer different points of reference. The Soleleitungsweg is a themed hike along the historic brine pipeline dating from 1817, from the Berchtesgaden Salt Mine to the House of the Mountains. The route passes through Nonntal and Weinfeld and crosses the Soleleitungssteg. The Berchtesgaden panoramic loop takes about an hour: it passes churches and chapels in the historic center, then follows the Soleleitungsweg above the town. The panoramic loop gives an approximate duration for a clearly defined walk; the Soleleitungsweg can be understood through its history, endpoints and named places along the way.

The Berchtesgadener Land as a Wider Region

The wider travel destination of Berchtesgadener Land lies in southeastern Upper Bavaria and extends from the gently rolling Rupertiwinkel in the north to Berchtesgaden National Park on the border with Austria. In the south, the region’s landscape includes high alpine mountains and the natural setting around Königssee. The Berchtesgadener Land Biosphere Region encompasses the entire district of Berchtesgadener Land.

Across the wider travel destination of Berchtesgadener Land, the national park’s hiking network includes 260 kilometers of hiking trails and alpine paths. The panoramic trail around the House of the Mountains brings visitors into contact with the materials and plants of four habitats—water, forest, alpine pasture and rock—and offers views of Watzmann, Hochkalter and Jenner. Those interested in a hike can choose between an extensive trail network and a route with named habitats and viewpoints.

The region’s food and drink scene also has a specific place to visit: during opening hours, the visitor center at Grassl Distillery in Unterau offers a signposted tour about the distillation of gentian, juniper, gin and masterwort, as well as a free tasting of 40 specialties. Opening hours and tasting conditions may change; check both before your visit.

Discover more destinations: Marktschellenberg, Saaldorf-Surheim, Ainring, Bischofswiesen, Bad Reichenhall, Eck, Anger, Teisendorf.

Go to the wider travel overview: Berchtesgadener Land.