Day 47 – Grossglockner (Wednesday 29th May 2024)

Hang on! Let me have another look. Maybe in the bottom of the backpack?! No, can’t find any there. Oh well! Sorry folks, but I’ve run out of superlatives to describe the sights and the vistas we were privileged to see today. I hoped that today’s travels would be a highlight of the whole trip and I haven’t been let down.

 

Billed as the most magnificent drive in the whole of Europe (some claim, the World), the Grossglockner High Alpine Road lived up to every expectation we had and every description we read. It’s a twisting, turning road of 48kms from Fusch in the north to Heiligenblut am Grossglockner in the south. The accessibility to the places we visited is a credit to the engineers and workers who built this exceptional road across the mountains. In August 1930 construction of the road, the primary purpose of which was automotive tourism, was started. The government covered the cost as an avenue for the employment of 3,200 Austrians who were still suffering with post-WWI blues and in the depths of the Great Depression. The government’s outlay would be reimbursed by a toll on the road. Five years later the road was opened. Almost 90 years after that there’s still a toll on the road - €43.00 per car – but, believe me, at a little under €1.00/km it’s worth every Euro!

 

 

This serpentine road is definitely built for tourists. The road is wide, the road surface is first quality and hundred metres or so there are places to easily, quickly and safely pull over for a photograph of yet another magnificent vista. The road is shared with buses (not very many), motorcyclists and bicyclist. I have to admire the commitment of those men and women who are out there on their push-bikes emulating the fears of the Giro d’Italia cyclists of 1971 and 2011. Probably the best way to do the road, with plenty of time to take in the scenery. Although the strain and looks of exhaustion on the faces of some of the riders might provide another view in that.

 

 

We stopped countless times on the way up and the way down with the highlight being the 1.5km detour up the Edelweißspitze (2,572m) for a 360 degree panoramic view. In view are over 30 pealk that breach 3,000m in altitude. The drive up and the wonderful panoramic view when you get there is not dissimilar to the drive up to Mt. Mackay (1842m) near Falls Creek, the highest point in Australia that’s reachable by car, except that you can get a beer or a coffee or a strudel on Edelweißspitze! The Hochter Pass, just near Edelweißspitze, represents the top of the climb. The road only opens in early May and closes in October.

Being late May, the landscape, both near and distant is still is copious amounts of snow and ice. Snow-ploughs are still required to keep the road open at this time of year. For us, the weather was perfect. It could not have been better. Mostly blue sky and sunshine, no chilly winds with the odd fluffy white cloud cresting the mountain tops. In a carpark near Hochter Pass we found a wooden table with bench seats and enjoyed lunch in the most awe-inspiring setting.

 

 

Down the other side of the Pass the road-side snow seemed to be even more prevalent. Snow-covered hill-sides greeted at every hair-pin bend in the road. A number of times we drove through walls of ice 10m high gracing either edge of the road. A quite surreal driving experience. We came upon the detour to the Pasterze Glacier (at 3,453m), a fifteen minute drive off the main road. Here we found the 8km long glacier at the foot of high, rocky ridge that led to Grossglockner, Austria’s highest mountain at 3,798m. We stopped for some refreshment (an ice cream, not a coffee!) and to have a short break before continuing the descent, eventually arriving in Heiligenblut am Grossglockner but not before finding a place to so stop and take a photo of the green valley below, wedged between two enormous mountainsides.

 

The journey home took us down another long, green valley dotted with town and villages along the way. At one point we caught view of the craggy peaks of the Dolomites on the border between Austria and Italy. We hit the A10 autobahn north to Salzburg with still about 150kms to go, arriving home at about 7:00pm.

Anyway, enough words. I'll let the pictures do the talking.....