From the 10th until the 20th of September we made the campervan our home again. For some enjoyable late summer temperatures we were heading south this time and had some mountains, gelati and latte macchiatos in mind…Italia!
On the way to Italy we left the German Autobahn just north of Stuttgart where we visited Kerstin and Christian for `Kaffee und Kuchen` and just before the high Alps came into sight we spent the night at the Raststätte Allgäuer Tor north of the German city Kempten.
The first tourist attraction that we wanted to experience was the Ehrenberg Highline179 bridge near the German Austrian border in Reutte. This bridge of steel has been build between two mountain tops from the Ehrenberg castle on one sight to the Claudia castle on the other side, 113 meters high above Klaus village and the main street. The good thing of this bridge is that you can actually watch through the bottom floor all the way down and while it is wiggling and shaking it is just funny and exciting at the same time!
By taking the beautiful Fernpass we noticed that actually only cars other than Austrian plates are driving this road. It might be a smart idea to collect some toll for this stretch of road, too as many other roads do in Austria but the Fernpass is not. We passed the city of Imst and soon after we reached the Ötztal which we drove all the way to the end. Just after Sölden the Ötztal narrows down making it a natural high border between Austria and Italy. The Timmelsjoch Hochalpenstrasse makes it possible to cross the border though at 2509 meters hight.
Beautiful views left and right. Bienvenuti en Italia! With our 80 Hp it was quite a job for our sprinter to get up the mountain pass but by crossing the border we smoothly went down into Italy.
Immediately after we got to St. Leonard in Passeier, which marks the Italian end of the Timmelsjoch, we made a sheer bend to the left and we started our ascend on the Jaufenpass. We already were on the road for a couple of hours but until now we only covered many kilometers in altitude rather than kilometers in distance. But the views were just fantastic everywhere you look and that is the reason for being on the road right?
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