Last Updated on: February 20, 2023

It’s almost inconceivable to travel into, or around in, the Austrian Alps without riding Grossglockner High Alpine Road. Whether from one side to the other, or both directions.  

The Grossglockner high alpine road is one of those roads that, whether you enter from the north or the south, gives some bubbling form of excitement. Maybe because, from a long distance, you can see the mountains.

Grossglockner High Alpine road. Picture taken not long after the tunnel, facing nohrt.

This is especially true if you enter from south. And continue up on the 107, which has several names, towards and past Heiligenblut Am Grossglockner. Which stis in the Hohe Tauern national park.

From France to Italy and Austria

At one point, while riding about in the Alps, I get, in lack of a better word, “full”.  Don’t know if this makes sense to you, but it makes a lot sense to me. No different from other things in life, I guess. Excitement at first but eventually it wanes, somewhat.

So far on this adventure I had been through the French Alps. Followed by the Dolomites. One and a half day is perhaps too litte. Especially since, as it turned out, I missed out on a few roads and passes. Oh well, that means something to explore later!

Down into Cortina d’Ampezzo, passed the hotel where it all started (?).

From Canazei, once again across the mountains, and Passo Falzarego, down towards Cortina d’Ampezzo. Onto SS51 north to Dobbiaco or Toblach, then east on SS49 towards the Italian – Austrian border. Given my direction there weren’t too many detour choices.

Magnificent small road view in Austria.

At a village called Thal I took off, onto a small road that led up along the valley side. The thought was to ride it in parallel to the main road, for a while. Unfortunately it was closed further up. So back down the same way and onto road 100.

Sometimes things don’t work out. But one can’t stop exploring just because things don’t work out. Back on road 100 I carried on, making a lunch stop just south of Lienz.

The Grossglockner High Alpine Road

Along Grossglockner high alpine road, in the rear an old snow clearing machine.

Since I’d been there before I knew what was coming. Didn’t stop me from being excited. Past Winklern and a bit up along the road you see the Grossglockner in distance. Rode past Heiligenblut and continued up to Kaiser Franz-Josef Höhe.

Along GrossGlockner high alpine road, looking down on Heiligenblut

Arriving at the vantage point I was surprised by the lack of people, cars and especially, motorcycles. Strange, considering it was a Friday afternoon. Another thing that surprised me, positively, was changes done to the earlier horrible parking building there. Ugly corrugated steel had been replaced by glass, or plexi-glass.

The motorcycle parking at Kaiser Franz-Josef Hohe, almost empty.

I stayed on a little while to take some pictures and film a bit. Unfortunately there was an annoying generator or engine sound of some kind.

Not the kind of background sound you want when marvelling at the mountain. if you play this clip turn down the volume for a better experience :).

View of mountains and glacier lake at View at Kaiser Franz-Josef Hohe

Finally it was time to head back down, and take the rest of the high alpine road north in direction of of EdelweissSpitze. Which is perhaps one of my favourite vantage points in all of the Alps.

Heading down the alpine road, to go north towards Zell am See

Well, more about that later. This post has been long winded enough as it is. You can find more pictures in the 2021 Adventure gallery.