Today we rode on the Grossglockner high alpine road; with 32 hair pin bends (1 way, so 64 altogether) and a height of 2672 metres- resort is 700 metres! I have skied off lower heights than this!

We set off to ride this road after seeing it on the Hairy Biker's show, we thought it would be a ride the same as we do to the Cat and Fiddle or up to the Ponderosa cafe in Llangollen and expected to be back with a couple of hours; how wrong we were! The road is actually part of the National Forest and as well as finishing at the Grossglockner glacier there are stop off view points, areas of natural beauty and a museum along the way, as well as being able to ride the 32 hairpins time and time again. We set off at 9.30 and got back at around 3!
Now most of you know my fear of heights, my loathing of twisty bendy roads in any vehicle so for me today was quite a trial. The last 6 hairpins to the highest point were extremely tight and the road was completely cobbled; by the time we got there I was ready for a Gluwein or a brandy! Coming back down was even more scary and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we reached the toll booth to exit the road: Colin thoroughly enjoyed himself which is good as we came here specifically for him to ride the road! I'm sure the scenery was spectacular had I managed to look at it! Still Colin has lots of photo's for me to look at from the safety of our room!
We did have a hold up as an air ambulance helicopter landed in the middle of the road to pick up a cyclist who had come off and presumably badly injured himself. We had been in great admiration for the large number of cyclists riding the road and had laughed that we would probably be overtaken by them as we rode back down because they were going so fast.

When we came back Colin wanted to walk around the lake which was around 3 hours but because my calves were still sore from yesterday's walk we cheated and used our discount card to go across to one side by boat. We were disappointed to find that most of the walking on that side of the lake was down the main road but we persevered and came to some lovely parks which we walked through and finally found the lake side path again.

A lot of the lake side is fenced off for the private use of hotels or paid Lido's but with these parks just next to them there is very little need to pay to get access to the water and in some cases the parks are far more spacious and have nicer grass! Some of the houses we passed were very luxurious with enormous gardens. We also came across a number of campsites about 30 mins from the resort.

We had expected to see a few British plates as we rode today especially when we got to the glacier and the highest point as the large number of motorbikes parked up looked like a rally! The only one we saw was on a car at the top of the mountain, we can only assume that since leaving Rotterdam we have done none of the places that british holidaymakers visit. We'll see what the next few days bring as we head off to travel through the Black Forest.