Woke to an overcast day with low cloud but no rain. We had a good breakfast with a big choice of freshly made bread. We walked 1km to the bus stop and found another family there when we arrived. The bus came early, complete with a national park tour guide who provided commentary in both English and German. The guide told us there was another person also travelling on the bus who is starting the walk tomorrow. (We chatted to Susan later.) We were shocked to see that the toll for the road was 40 euros for a car! The road climbed up and we had a stop for coffee and an exhibition of various minerals found in the area. Further up and there was fresh snow lying, which was a bit worrying for our walk tomorrow. This route had been used by the Romans, and throughout Medieval times for trade between Italy and the Salzburg region. We drove through a number of tunnels, with the last one taking us onto the south side of the mountains. The weather immediately improved with glimpses of sunshine and no more snow. The road dropped down before climbing back up to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Hohe where the road ended. There was a view of the glacier in the distance and we were lucky to see the top of Grossglockner, the highest mountain in Austria. The guide said that it was usually covered in cloud, despite the cloud everywhere else. It was easy to spot marmots and ibex in the valley below. We visited the start of the Alpe-Adria trail, had a look round the exhibitions of Porsche cars, the history of women mountaineering, and flora in the mountains. We then went off to explore our accommodation for the night, passing some very tame marmots on the way. We had left our rucksacks in the bus while we explored and were able to take a lift down to the bus and back up directly from the hotel. We checked in to a nice room. Online reviews of the food don’t look too good; we will shortly find out for ourselves. (The other restaurant gets even worse reviews)
