Hannibal crossed them with elephants, Caesar’s army trudged over them by foot, Napoleon made it by mule and countless carmakers have since tested their vroom at the top on them. They are, of course, the Alps, and when it comes to mountainous self-drive adventures, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road is surely the ‘daddy’ of them all -- a 'must' on any Austrian driving holiday.
The Grossglockner High Alpine Road (Grossglockner-Hochalpenstrasse in German) connects the Austrian states of Salzburg and Carinthia, and is located in the heart of the Hohe Tauern National Park.
An Alpine adventure drive
With no less than 36 hairpin bends, the route covers a breathtaking 48 kilometres of high alpine road and gets you up close to the spectacular Grossglockner mountain (at 3,798 metres, the highest in Austria) and the majestic Pasterze glacier – which is melting by the minute.
If you think the statistics are pretty awesome, wait until you see the scenery. It’s the type of drive that has many travel writers searching for new superlatives. It’s The Sound of Music meets Cliffhanger with a touch of Disney. And it’s at the top of the ‘must do’ list for hundreds (make that thousands) of driving enthusiasts around the world.
Will it live up to the guidebook image of white-knuckle, hair-raising road adventure? Probably not. The Sierras and Rockies will challenge your driving skills far more. But if you are used to driving very little else than wide, level roads, the Grossglockner alpine route will certainly throw some thrills your way.
On a fine summer’s day you’ll be stopping at almost every lookout along the Grossglockner High Alpine Road. Forest-fringed waterfalls and distant pastures carpeted with wildflowers, shimmering lakes and Austria’s loftiest peaks graced with pearly white glaciers, it only needs the singing von Trapps to perfect those videos you’ll be shooting to show the folks back home.
As you start out on your alpine adventure take a few minutes to reflect on its history. It was back in the mid-1920s that a group of Austrian engineers came up with an idea for a road over the high pass -- but they were laughed at when they presented their plan.
At that time Austria and its neighbours, Germany and Italy had only a couple of thousand kilometres of long-distance asphalt roads between them – considered adequate for the number of cars on the road in that part of the world back then. The idea of something like the Grossglockner High Alpine Road seemed ludicrous – especially as Austria was still hurting from the ruinous economic impact of losing World War One.
The catalyst for building the road came from the New York stock market crash in 1929. The fall of Wall Street meant even more hardships for impoverished Austria, which saw unemployment soar. So the government decided to take the Grossglockner project out of mothballs -- alpine self-drive tourism was about to be born in Austria.
The first explosives shook sleepy Ferleiten in the late summer of 1930, and over the next five years some three thousand men hewed out a narrow road through the country’s wildest and most inaccessible mountainous terrain.
A little trivia: the first car to put the road to the test was a modest Austrian-made four-cylinder Steyr 100 with Franz Wallack, the visionary engineer behind the scheme, at the wheel and a leading Salzburg politician (think of the votes) as his passenger. That was in the summer of 1934. A year later the Grossglockner High Alpine Road was officially opened with an international car and motorcycle race. The rest, as they say, is history.
To mark the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road in 2010, the Austrian Mint in Vienna issued a silver commemorative 5 Euro coin. It’s probably the only driving route in the world to have a coin minted in its honour.
The Grossglockner High Alpine Road (R107) is open from May to November -- 05.00 to 21.30 in high season (mid-June to mid-September) and 06.00 to 19.30 the rest of the year. It’s best to get an early start, and in the low season don’t forget to check the weather conditions before setting out.
The road starts at Bruck, a small village located in Salzburgerland’s forested Fuschertal valley just over a hundred kilometres south of Salzburg and very close to the chic lakeside resort town of Zell am See.
Driving south from Bruck you will soon arrive at the Ferleiten tollbooth. A day ticket to use the road costs €29 for cars. It may sound expensive, but the price also includes access to all information facilities (they are uber-informative) and use of parking areas along the way.
Although you’ll notice dozens of ski chalets in the vicinity the nearest ski slope is the Schmittenhöhe several kilometres away in Zell am See. There are, however, some excellent walking tracks, and the area is also known for its beautiful rare (and protected) orchids.
Once past the toll its a short run to Pfiffkar. Stop to take a stroll through the alpine meadow accessed through a wooden gate. It has signs that tell which plant is which, and leads on to some woods, which are scattered with rhododendrons in the spring and summer months. Once again, it seems like a scene from The Sound of Music and is a great stop if you are travelling with children.
From Pfiffkar each vertiginous turn opens up an extraordinary view. You will soon come to the Alpine Nature Showroom (no, it’s not a winter sportswear store), where you will get some fascinating insights into the survival strategies of the wildlife living in this often harsh mountainous region: the geology exhibition explains the rocks and their origins.
Further along take the sharp turn left off the Grossglockner High Alpine Road on a twist and turning climb to Edelweissspitze.
From the top of Edelweissspitze you have a commanding view of the valleys below -- from Aches to Zeller. You also see the mighty Grossglockner in the distance; and the Fuscher Torl, a monument to all the men who died building the alpine road.
You will be testing your brakes again as you return to the highway and continue on to Fuscher Lacke, where the mountains are dramatically mirrored in a small lake.
You might want to stop by at the Gasthof Fuscherlacke and relax for a while on the terrace while you try the chef’s tasty kaiserschmarrn, a fairly high calorie caramelised Austrian pancake. Affordable accommodation is also available.
There are a couple of high altitude tunnels after Fuscher Lacke: the Mitterorl and the Hochtor tunnels. Hochtor marks the provincial borders between Salzburg and Carinthia the southernmost Austrian state
There is a nature trail at Hochtor, which takes about half an hour to walk. Ancient artefacts found around here offer evidence of people crossing the Alps at this point for more than three thousand years – you will be following in the footsteps of Celts, Romans and muleskinners.
A route with great views
Being at this altitude you always need to be prepared as the weather can change from a blue summer’s day through to snow even in July.
The road veers west at Schoeneck and on to the Kaiser-Franz-Josephs-Höhe, where the majesty of the 3,798 metre high Grossglockner and the Pasterze Glacier loom into view. The deeply crevassed glacier is eight kilometres in length, making it the longest in the Eastern Alps.
There are sign that all is not well with the Pasterze Glacier -- it's retreating rapidly. It has shrunk to half its size since the mid-1800s, proof of the fragile nature of alpine eco-systems, and, perhaps, the harsh reality of global warming.
Armed with such facts, it is worth visiting the Fascination of Ice and Glaciers exhibition at the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe Visitors’ Centre, where you can immerse yourself in awe-inspiring nature of the massive glacier’s crevices and caves. Entrance to the exhibition is covered in the price of the road toll.
Continue on to picturesque Heiligenblut, a charming villlage set in the foothills of the Grossglockner mountain. The village’s Gothic pilgrimage church with its needle spire, was built in the late 15th century and contains what is claimed to be a relic of Christ’s blood. According to legend the blood was brought here by a Danish knight, who was buried by an avalanche near Heiligenblut on his way home from Constantinople in 914.
Heiligenblut marks the end of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road. From here you could wind your way east to Klagenfurt the Carinthian capital, famous for its university and the scenic beauty that surrounds it.