Hooray – sunshine at last, so we decided to go up the Grossglockner Pass in the Hohe Tauern National Park, with all possible viewpoints on the way. Those of you who have holidayed with me will know that I have to have the highest/lowest/furthest west etc point possible, and this fulfilled the first as the Grossglockner is the highest peak in Austria at 12,457 ft and the Hochtor Tunnel is the highest point on the pass.


The way up there was lovely: deep green valleys with lime green fields, those wonderful Alpine houses with window boxes & shutters, and churches with very tall thin steeples. We were a little put out to find not only was there a toll (NO mention of it at all in the guide book or leaflets) but more that they charged €35 per car!! Still, it is one of the world’s most beautiful mountain roads (guide book) and is certainly a feat of engineering as it was built in 1935 plus the sun was shining, so we paid up.

We stopped on the roadside when we saw people aiming their cameras up a grassy slope (always a sure-fire way to know there is something worth taking) – and there was a herd of Alpine ibex grazing by a waterfall. My book says virtually the only way to be sure of seeing this protected species is to visit the nature reserve, so we felt very lucky.
   




















The large visitor centre at the top of the side road was thankfully quite quiet although at least 50% of the visitors we saw were bikers, mostly from Italy or Germany. The view was stunning: the sun reflecting off the pristine snow on the Pasterze glacier, the turquoise glacial lakes at the bottom, and the Grossglockner itself – the top finally (mostly) broke through the clouds and gave us a view of its very pointy summit. The bottom of the valley was a loooong way below us so we revisited the temptation to trek down and watched a film about the building of the pass instead.

We eventually dragged ourselves away from the panoramic balconies to drive up the actual pass to the highest point, which involved many hairpin bends, roadside snow making little waterfalls, a covered section to protect from snowslides and driving through (sometimes) 8ft high walls of snow to the tunnel at Hochtor, where the temperature was a cool 4.6°C. Mission accomplished - highest & highest!




The way down was equally pretty and it was nice to observe the changing flora as we went: nothing but short grass gradually turned into a few trees then grass with wildflowers and finally the green forests and ravines of the lower slopes. We saw a convoy of open-topped Austin Healey 3000s, phalanxes of motorbikes, a convoy of rally cars and another convoy of Porsches, all obviously doing a tour of the Alps. All in all, a lovely day.