Day 12: From the Grossglockner to Sappada (ish)

Day 12 · Sappada

That was a much longer day than I was anticipating. Fortunately my hotel includes dinner, and I’m writing to you from my 3rd floor room overlooking some grazing mini horses, so there’s really no reason for me to leave this hotel tonight.

I hit the road around 9:30 this morning, thinking I only had 2-3 hours of riding to do so I could take my time. I did NOT realize that I was going to be going through the Austrian Grossglockner National Park and then coming BACK through it, and back through Heilingenblut, and back through a bit of what I rode yesterday to come in. Usually I’m pretty good at maps, but something about the last 2 days has me a little turned around.

Anyway – I was on the road for about 6 hours total, not the 2-3 I thought I would be so I am tired. It didn’t help that when I woke up all I really wanted to do today was stay in bed reading and possibly ringing a little bell for someone to bring me snacks. But instead I rallied, and I rode a motorcycle on beautiful roads (some twice).

After breakfast I was very ready to leave Heilingenblut, despite wanting to stay in bed. The guy at the front desk of this place (the owner I’m assuming) was I think trying to be hospitable by asking me questions about what I was doing every time I left and came back (EVEN TO PACK THE BIKE), but it left me feeling monitored and irritated.

I headed up the mountain and over to the viewing point of the Grossglockner, the highest point in Austria and their largest glacier. It was very beautiful, and there were in fact marmots right over the wall where the sign said “Marmots.” They must encourage them to hang out there somehow.

After that I headed back down that out and back spur and deeper into the park. I stopped to take some photos at another viewpoint, and then headed up the cobbled end of the road to the Edelweisspitze viewpoint, which had signs saying Bikers Point or something to that effect.

I imagine these peaks are really impressive when the view is clear, but today there was a little bit of cloud cover.

After that I followed the road down without realizing that my GPS was telling me to go the other way until I hit the foot of the mountain. I was starving and couldn’t tell what was happening with the maps, so I stopped to have lunch at a weird little amusement park of some kind and regroup.

After looking more closely at the maps and realizing that I’d come in to Heilingenblut from the south because of the rain yesterday (vs. the north as would make sense coming from Innsbruck) I figured out what had happened and resigned myself to another 3 hours on the bike to get to Sappada. Like my dad says, a road going the other way is a different road, and it was kind of nice to do the ascent on the other side of this one. It was more fun than descending.

After backtracking for about 90 minutes, I was onto new roads and headed into Italy. I didn’t stop to take any photos of anything because by this point I was already tired, but eventually my GoPro footage will upload and you’ll see the starts of the Dolomites and small Italian mountain villages. There was also a pretty cool road with some elbow macaroni-shaped tunnels in the corners.

Tomorrow I head deeper into the Dolomites for the next few days, and I’m in the middle of setting up a Via Ferrata in Cortina for Monday as the weather looks nice and I would like to do something not on a motorcycle for a day. I’ve ridden somewhere over 400 hairpin turns in the last 12 days and I am feeling it. Though I may come to regret a 6 hour hike in rented boots.

The WiFi here is better than the last hotel, but still not great so I’m not sure how many of my riding videos will make it to the GoPro album while I’m here. Hotel dinner was nothing special, and a little over-salted. But it was nice not to think about dinner for a day.