Table of contents

• Tour to the highest peaks in the 7 Alpine countries Peak of pleasure
• Mont Blanc (4,810 m) in France
• Gran Paradiso (4,061 m) in Italy
• Dufourspitze (4,634) in Switzerland
• Vordere Grauspitze (2,599 m) Liechtenstein
• Zugspitze (2,962 m) in Germany
• Grobglockner (3,798 m) in Austria
• Triglav (2,864 m) in Slovenia

Klaus H. Daams

23 pictures

Klaus H. Daams

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France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia – we drive to the highest mountains in each of the 7 Alpine countries.

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Mont Blanc: 4,810 meters, France.

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Gran Paradiso: 4,061 meters, Italy.

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Dufourspitze: 4,634 meters, Switzerland.

Klaus H. Daams

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Front Grauspitze: 2,599 meters, Liechtenstein.

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Grobglockner: 3,798 meters, Austria.

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Zugspitze: 2,962 meters, Germany.

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Triglav: 2,864 meters, Slovenia.

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as “Mountaineering equipment” a Yamaha Tracer 900 is used.

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Upper Valais Saas Valley – winding towards the highest Swiss mountains.

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Tourist experience Mont Blanc tunnel? Rather modest.

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The view at Merlet, however: great! But the highest mountain in France is often very media-shy.

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And everything that romps about on the Alpine roads makes the tour an entertaining road movie: cows on the Klausen.

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Classic cars on the Arlberg.

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Mountain bikers at the Edelweibspitze.

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Intoxicating transit route between Valais and Piedmont: Great St. Bernhard.

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Plenty of switchbacks on the Furka for motorcyclists of all stripes.

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A quick photo of the Pasterze, Austria’s largest glacier.

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Quickly swallow a strudel at the Zugspitze and then on to the final spurt.

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In Slovenia, Rainer finally gets his “Seven Summits” collection full.

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Getting more and more popular: Vršič Pass on Triglav in the Julian Alps / Slovenia.

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It is true that a motorcycle does not go all the way up to the highest peaks of the 7 Alpine countries, but there are other great passes and valleys around the summits.

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And if you really want to get to the top, you can take the cable car or lace up your hiking boots.

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Tour tips

Tour to the highest peaks in the 7 Alpine countries

Tour to the highest peaks in the 7 Alpine countries
Peak of pleasure

Big motorcycle cinema between three and four thousand meter peaks: off to the “Seven Summits”, the highest mountains in each of the seven Alpine countries! And because the supporting roles are also top-class with great passes, this tour becomes the peak of enjoyment.

Gerhard Eisenschink

04/27/2021

Rainer is two thousand meter high, and with a proud 2,000 millimeters is one of the tall ones. An adequate travel destination would of course be the highest peaks in the seven Alpine countries. Doesn’t have to come with complete mountaineering equipment, a Yamaha Tracer 900 does it too. Excellent, in fact.

Mont Blanc (4,810 m) in France

A long while on the motorway through Switzerland, and then fire on the phenomenal pass road over the Col de la Forclaz, because “thanks to its clear course, it allows rapid progress”, as it is so pretty in the Alpine Guide Denzel. Through Chamonix and Les Houches to the junction up to Merlet, an animal park with a view of Mont Blanc. Which is by no means a matter of course because of the thriving flora and true cloud mountains. Because the highest mountain in France at 4,810 meters is often very media-shy. The view in the tunnel under the White Mountain, which we use after a comfortable night in the Chalet-Hôtel Les Campanules, is even more sparse to get to the next destination via Aosta as quickly as possible.

Gran Paradiso (4,061 m) in Italy

Yes, time is money, and that’s how we almost feel like Japanese people “the Alps in four days” make. So: next summit. In Italy it is the 4,061 meter high Gran Paradiso. To get closer from the dammed Aosta valley on a paved roller coaster up to the high valley Valsavarenche. No through traffic, at best the tracer will run away when it shows in the serpentines at Imrod that it can hunt at low revs, but also loves racing. What does it matter that we only see the Gran Paradiso on a postcard, bought at a kiosk at the end of this valley. Back to Aosta, smoothly over the grandiose Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, dry spell between Martigny and Visp to the next top peak in Switzerland.

Dufourspitze (4,634) in Switzerland

The Dufourspitze measures 4,634 meters, 156 more than the Matterhorn. We land in Saas-Grund, at Mira and her guesthouse, to spend the night, so to speak, on the bed rugs of the Spitzenberg “Beautiful view”. Vacation like 30 years ago. The dining room a former disco, the rooms without frills. But right in front of the window is the Mischabel, a mountain range whose main summit, the cathedral, at 4,545 meters, is the highest mountain whose base is entirely in Switzerland. The Dufourspitze, on the other hand, already has one leg in Italy.

Thursday morning, already at six o’clock, the cathedral glows reddish-brown under an azure blue sky. Are there any national or local quibbles that bother with the motto: atsch, the mountain belongs to us all alone. What matters is the way up. And that is from “Beautiful view” all the way to the end of the valley at the Mattmark reservoir, relaxed and at the same time like a sharp bend, regardless of whether you can identify the Dufourspitze somewhere. Instead of postcards from the Swiss Summit, there are only those from the cathedral in Saas-Grund. But who would ask for souvenirs from Schalke 04 in Dortmund after all?

Passing team with switchbacks fed up

Speaking of football wisdom: the team is the star. Similarly, in the following stage, it is the passing team, not just a single outstanding player, who guarantees success. To warm up through the wide valley of the Rhone, past ancient wooden houses that stand like spectators on the green edge of the playing field, before the serpentines of the Grimsel Pass pile up in Gletsch as if it were a monster lasagna – which we don’t eat today because we are on the right Furka pan, also a first division pass road. Fed up with switchbacks there, logo, which makes 28 kilometers a magnet for motorcyclists of all stripes, from veterans to greenhorns. “Some almost fall off their bikes when they say hello”, comments Rainer. And confesses after the next classic, the Klausenpass: “In the first section I drove more to the left of the rock wall than to the right of the abyss, the thin poles used to secure the edges look like toothpicks.”

Vordere Grauspitze (2,599 m) Liechtenstein

Where is the Vordere Grauspitze hiding, this highest mountain in Liechtenstein at 2599 meters? After all, in the tiny principality there is not only castles and financial structures but also space for a number of bends, the route from Triesen to Malbun. And now we look out for the tip we are looking for. Vain. But again a decent injection of adrenaline, in which a briskly driving Subaru Impreza is not entirely uninvolved. On the descent into the bustling Rhine Valley, a cursory glance at the Grauspitze, meanwhile well informed. Vaduz, Feldkirch, Bludenz: Close your eyes and through. A game lasts 90 minutes, so sometimes you have to wait patiently for the next hit.

Continue to Stuben, where we meet the 3rd Arlberg Automobil Renn Slalom, in the starter field blatant boxes from the silent movie era. Retting rasp on the Flexenpass, holiday flood in Zurs and Lech, Schlangelstrabchen to Warth, through the Lech Valley to the junction into the Namlos Valley – which presents itself as an endlessly awesome band of artfully linked curves. And finally, a pit stop in Berwang on the terrace of the restaurant-cafe “Mirabell” with apple strudel kick and view of the Zugspitze.

Zugspitze (2,962 m) in Germany

Should we gondola to Germany’s largest, 2962 meter high summit? From the Eibsee near Garmisch-Partenkirchen or alternatively with the Tyrolean Zugspitzbahn from Ehrwald? 46.50 euros each for ascent and descent would have to be shelled out. No, you’d better keep zapping right away. Sorry, Top of Germany, but there are still a good 220 kilometers to the Grobglockner. Via Vorderrib, Achensee and Gerlospass – whose roundabout carousel is always great fun – we make it at least as far as Mittersill in Oberpinzgau.

Grobglockner (3,798 m) in Austria

And what does the Grobglockner High Alpine Road have in store for a toll of 26 euros? Well, an engineering masterpiece, materialized by Malochers into a total work of art made up of 48 kilometers and 36 hairpin bends. The culmination point: the Edelweibspitze with its legendary cobblestone passage, a lookout tower and the almost unearthly accommodation in the Edelweibhutte at 2,572 meters. In comparison, the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Hohe turns out to be a fairground with a huge parking garage like a shopping center. The goods: View of the 3,798 meter high Grossglockner, Austria’s summit. And on the Pasterze, formerly eternal ice, where you can watch the glacier slowly die. Which proves: Climate change is not kidding. Eleven fifty-five?

Triglav (2,864 m) in Slovenia

Four and a half hours later the seventh summit, the 2,864 meter high Triglav in Slovenia. The low-traffic Nassfeldpass with its two is long behind us “Faces”: on the north ramp pure asphalt for wagging bends, on the south side pitted terrain and pothole slalom as well as a tunnel with a narrow, sloping bend. So now scan the landscape one last time in search of the summit. Well, not so easy for mountain railroaders, the one “Three-headed” to locate. Anyway, the steep Škrlatica face and other jagged tongue twisters along the Vršič pass through the Triglav National Park, which is paved with 49 hairpin bends, some of which are cobblestone, are definitely attractive alternatives. And so we simply complete our summit collection with another postcard.

Travel time: Due to winter closures due to snow, many Alpine passes are often only passable from June to October.

Accommodations

• Mont Blanc / France: Not far from Chamonix is ​​the quiet Chalet-Hotel Les Campanules
• Gran Paradiso / Italy: cabins and apartments at the Pont Breuil campsite
• Dufourspitze / Switzerland: Pension Schonblick in Saas-Grund
• Vordere Grauspitze / Liechtenstein: The family Hotel Turna Malbun in Triesenberg can be reached on a winding mountain route
• Zugspitze / Germany: The Eibsee Hotel is located at the foot of the mountain, alternatively – even if much closer to the Namlos Valley than to the Zugspitze – the guest house Zugspitzblick is located in Berwang in Austria
• Grobglockner / Austria: Surrounded by 37 three-thousand-meter peaks, you spend the night in the Edelweibhutte in Fusch on Grobglocknerstrasse in a very exclusive way
• Triglav / Slovenia: at the northern approach to the Vršič pass, the Pension and Restaurant Milka in Kranjska Gora

Traveling with a tent: There are some recommended campsites right on the route described in this travel story: Hobo Camping in Val Veny, Camping Schonblick in Saas-Grund, Camping Pont Breuil in Valsavarenche, Zugspitz Resort on the Austrian side of Germany’s highest mountain, National Park Camping Grobglockner on the High Alpine Road, Camping Trenta Sergej Bolčina, south of the Vršič pass and directly on the Isonzo mountain river.

Summit excursions: Among the four-thousand-meter peaks of the Seven Alpine Summits, the Gran Paradiso in Italy is probably the easiest mountain to conquer with one’s own muscle power. Ascent from the Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele II, to be reached via Pont at the end of Valsavarenche.

For the more comfortable among the mountain tourists: From Chamonix, the cable car to the 3,842 meter high Aiguille du Midi floats up into the white world of Mont Blanc; There are three comfortable alternatives for the Zugspitze, from the Eibsee near Garmisch-Partenkirchen both the cable car and the cogwheel train, from Ehrwald the Tyrolean Zugspitzbahn.

Literature and Maps: The paperback “The Seven Summits of the Alps” from Bruckmann Verlag for 26.99 euros describes 42 dream tours on and around the highest peaks in the seven Alpine countries. For a good overview: tear and waterproof road map “Alps”, 1: 550,000, Reise Know-How Verlag, 9.95 euros; more detailed country maps, if necessary, from Michelin’s regional map 523 “Rhône-Alpes ” 1: 200,000 for 10.95 euros up to “Slovenia” 1: 150,000 from freytag & berndt for 10.90 euros.

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