Grossglockner

We had to leave Helga and Klaus' home in Innsbruck in a bit of haste. There was no great social blunder that caused this, it was yet another case of me getting slightly confused about the time - space continuum. Confident that my flight home was 10PM Friday, I was a bit surprised to find on checking that it is actually mid - day Thursday, effectively two full days earlier than I'd thought.

It was dry and overcast, the Grossglockner forecast had been for fair today and good tomorrow. It looked ok, so we went for it.

Dry down the freeway, but increasingly wet and steady rain as we crossed the Gerlos Pass. Shame, that, because it is a loveiery ride, great road and postcard standard scenery.

At least it was dry, with high, light grey cloud as we pulled up at the Grossglockner toll booths. We had a plan. Cross the pass for a "sighting" run, then a liesurely return with lots of photo stops. And like all good plans....

€17 each gets us a day pass. Grossglockner actively promotes itself as the most motorcycle friendly pass, in addition to being the roof of Austria. There is a lot of good rider info; suggested routes, specific "biker points" and so on. "Biker Points" have lockers so you can secure your helmet and jacket while you go for a walk and take in the natural wonderment. All of the info is in German, of course.

So we're into it. It is superb. Great surface, wide, hairpins are all second gear jobs, traffic is light. Glorious fanging. We take the turning up to the real Franz Josef glacier, where there is a vast multi storey carpark, with a large, chained off, motorcycle parking area at ground level. Having marvelled at it all, we rode on and down to Heiligeniblut, the Southern end, for fuel. Back for the photo run, and feeling very smug.

Stopping at the toll booth to show our passes, we were rapidly de - smugged. The advice from the booth girl was that the weather had changed, it was now snowing and may not be safe for motorcycles. She made a call and then told us to go, but to go straight over and not stop. Stelvio is still etched into our muscles, we could be called "snow shy", and I have formally seen enough of the bloody stuff to last me forever. But from the other side we head Salzburg, Munich, London, so we went.

It was wet, it was foggy and snowing wet, sticky flakes, but nowhere as bad as Stelvio. Suffice to say that we don't have many photos as proof, but we did it.

That marked the official end of the fun. All that remains is the transit back to the UK. So we start that. Gradually growing roads until we're on the freeway and then the Autobahn. Salzburg, then Munich. Should have been straightforward, and was (I suppose) apart from the detour. Part of the Abahn was closed for works, so three lanes of traffic were directed through a string of villages, regulated by one intersection where the light sequence would allow a max of six cars through at a time. Utter bedlam, and in a thunderous storm, possibly the heaviest rain we have seen on the trip. Trickling around and through, we made better of it than the cars.

Naturally it was fully dark by the time we hit the Munchen ring road. Round we went, exiting for Erding, a really nice village not far from the airport and close to the freeway. Close to the freeway, but 26km from the ring road! Og was convinced that I was lost. Anyway... a good hotel in town, a great bar/restaurant down an alleyway, and a glorious snooze capped the day.