St. Jakob in Defereggen

Another gorgeous morning awaited us. That said, even in the mountains we could feel the heat start to build. Just a quick trip north into Bruck for fuel and we were on our way for the day.

We had previously passed through this section of highway on the start of our Alps tour, but we veered south at Mittersill, bound for Italy this time. Unbeknownst to us, our route included another tunnel through the base of a mountain range to pass between Salzburg and East Tyrol provinces, with a length of 5.3km! Only this time there was a toll on the other side 🤷‍♂️

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felbertauerntunnel

We spent a lot more time on highways today. Eventually, we headed east away from the holiday and weekend traffic on the Defereggentalstraße. The main road stayed mostly in the valley, with the exception of a side trip up the north valley side. Eventually our route took us through a section of switch-backs and into the alpine of the Staller Saddle, then Italy. The Italian side of this pass is single lane, and traffic controlled with alternating directions every 15 mins. We lucked out being the last motorists heading down before the light changed. We had the whole decent to ourselves as we did not catch up to anyone else!

The Italian side seemed very reminiscent of the Austrian side; all the signage is in German, and the architecture is very similar in style. This is not surprising as many locals feel the region was wrongfully annexed by Italy in 1919 after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Apparently world powers at the time decided to appease the Italians, who wanted control south of Brenner pass in the Alps. For the better part of a century political coercion and cultural bullying occurred until the region of South Tyrol was given autonomy in the 1970s.

We tootled along our route, being careful to watch the multiple speed zone changes. Suddenly we were flagged to pull over by the local police waiting on the side of the road. Not much occurred other than them asking to see our ID, and send us on our way!?🤔 This wasn't a surprise to A, only that it hadn't happened earlier in the trip.

The last few kilometres to get to the hotel were a bit agonizing due to a snail's pace high traffic volume through an inactive construction zone. The heat made it that much worse, so we leap-frogged a couple times to get the air flow.

Finally arrived at our destination, only to find that A/C wasn't available in our room. Luckily the room was cool enough, and a reprieve from the outdoor heat at 34C. We also faced east, and the wind was blowing intensely.

The half-board that came with the stay was fantastic. The usual salad bar, then the starter of zucchini and shrimp risotto, followed by English roast beef, and a strawberry and chocolate rotolo dessert. One of us may have happily accepted the offer of a second plate of the roast beef 😜Leer más