Towards the Grossglockner

A short Austrian tour, not defined at the start, with a single fixed destination: the legendary Grossglocknerhochenalpenstrasse, the Grossglockner road. After the first stop at San Candido, we stop to eat at Sillian, where you can already breathe Austria and beer; they eat goulash with knodeln. Having reached the Lienz area, we turn off into the valley as far as Matrei and then look for somewhere to sleep at Winklern. In Austria hospitality is proverbial, every house rents rooms and they let you into their homes and their lives.. In the evening we visit Lienz, but it's a bit cold and we turn our craving for ice cream into caffellatte and Apfelstrudel. We continue into the valley below Winklern, looking for the Molltaler Gletscher cable car; finding it is a feat, the road climbs steeply, we arrive at a large square, but nothing can be seen.

People are getting dressed, putting on heavy shoes: where are they going? Finally we understand: the cable car is nothing other than a funicular inside the mountain, which climbs 500 metres in altitude at a speed of 40-45 km/h in an uphill tunnel. The experience is intense. We come out into high mountain terrain, there is almost no vegetation and the people have vanished. We walk for a couple of hours along artificial lakes and it's cold. In the afternoon we continue to Seeboden, a little village nestling on the Millstättersee; it's hot. We visit Spittal on the river Drava, but it doesn't win us over. It's the big day, a stop at Heiligenblut, from where the Grossglocknerhochenalpenstrasse starts; you pay the entrance and then off towards the high peaks of Austria.

The route is about 50 km long; at the start there are wide hairpin bends, then the road keeps climbing to an altitude of 2500 metres. We stop at all the marked stopping places; it's astonishing to see how the Pasterze glacier is progressively shrinking. We climb towards wonderful views, up to the Edelweiss peak. We descend and the landscape turns green and blue, with waterfalls and small glaciers in the distance. Dinner and overnight stay at Werfen. Visit to Werfen castle, the Hohenwerfenschloss, and to finish, a show at the Austrian Falconry, with eagles and falcons. We return down into the valley, determined to go and see the ice cave, the Eisriesenberg. You have to take a minibus to get to the cable car that will take us up to altitude, and here I discover by chance that the temperature inside the cave is 0° and the time allowed inside is 75 minutes……sweaters and jackets.

After 5-6 km by minibus…..walk uphill for 20 minutes and we reach the cable car; the queue is unbelievable, after an hour we go up and lunch is by now gone. We take a path below the mountain ridge, we're at 2000 metres, and after another 20 minutes we find ourselves in front of an enormous hole, closed by an iron door from which freezing air occasionally escapes; we're about to enter a freezer. We get dressed, we're handed a lantern, we form a group of 50 people, the door opens, the impact with the cold air is tremendous, darkness, cold that penetrates everywhere….the lanterns go out. We walk inside the icy cave….the steps begin, there will be 600 going up and then as many going down, our legs move by themselves, the spectacle is unique. We come out and the 25° outside seems too little. Astonished by the experience, we continue towards Salzburg.

We had already visited it years before, a walk in the Mirabell gardens and along the Getreidegasse, Mozart's street. A walk in the Hellbrunn park and then we head towards Lake Mondsee; in the afternoon Wolfgangsee and the flower beds of Strobl. Evening at Bad Ischl, where there is the villa where Franz Joseph used to spend his holidays. It's the day of the return, the weather worsens. One last cable car, but at altitude there are too many clouds. We stop for lunch in a meadow on the Hallstättersee; we eat two "bosna", sandwiches with sausage, onion, ketchup and mustard….go Austria. We continue south along the Salzburgerdolomitenstrasse, through gentle slopes and green landscapes. We've made many trips in Austria, each one a lovely experience.