Thursday 25th October 2018
After the previous day’s poor weather conditions, particularly the relentless rain, we woke to bright skies and spectacular views across Lake Zell and the snow capped Alps in the distance.
I must admit that Ray has come up trumps many times choosing our next location and we are often blessed with some decent weather conditions, if only for a day or two but more than expected at this time of the year 😉
Everything told us that today was definitely the perfect day to take the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße and enjoy 48 kms of wonderful scenery within the heart of the Höhe Tauern National Park.
There weren’t many more days that the road would be open, as weather conditions usually only allow travel up until early November. (As I write this blog the road is closed, following heavy snowfalls).
From Bruck we reached the toll booth on the B 107 and paid € 26 for a day ticket receiving a detailed map and car sticker and we were off.
The ascent began in earnest and so did the 36 hairpin bends.
The autumnal colours of the trees along the road were spectacular and it was hard not to pause at every lookout point and step out of the car and admire the views and the crisp fresh air.
There are 10 well marked stopping points, some with exhibitions, information points, cafes, observation platforms or just fantastic viewpoints, as well as the final Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe lookout point and visitors centre.
One of our favourite stops was at 2260 m at the Haus Alpine Naturschau, a modern museum on alpine ecology with exhibitions. It also had a great little café, small gift shop and super clean loos.
We continued to zigzag our way higher taking in the views of the snow-white peaks pausing at Fuscher Töri a beautiful photo location on the northern side.
Unfortunately on the day we took the trip the Edelweiss-Spitze access road to the highest vantage point was closed.
The landscape changed as our journey continued on the southern side, passing through a short tunnel before winding our way back down towards Schöneck, before heading west through high meadows and onwards to Grossglockner, Austria’s highest peak and the visitor centre at Franz-Josephs-Höhe.
We parked in the covered multi-storey car park and on exiting onto the lookout point; we were blasted with extremely chilly winds.
Unfortunately the views weren’t particularly good, we had seen better along our journey and I guess because of the late time of year, lots of maintenance work was happening and several of the observation buildings were closed.
There was an art exhibition in the visitor’s centre but it didn’t really float our boat, we were a little confused about how the exhibits related to each other. We are by no means art experts and as always art is subjective.
All that said, we would do it all again in a heartbeat. We know how lucky we had been as the weather had been kind to us. We had experienced the best that the alpine road had to offer in late autumn, with colourful foliage, snow capped mountains and stunning blue skies.