Summer Time Weather

Something not much advertised about travel in Austria and Germany is that in the summer time it rains a metric-shitload. Yes, they use the metric system there. You have to get used to that as well. (see fig 1 below)

Average Rainfall in Salzburg 

It rains more in the summer than it does in the winter. Tell me why that relevant little fact is not splattered all over their fancy tourist websites. Not only does it rain a ton in the summer but it also snows! (see fig 2). Not a whole lot of fun riding your bike in that kind of weather. The weather during our trip varied between freezing to almost 40 degrees. Not ideal. Actually, it totally sucks if you are planning on doing any outdoor activities. You can count on every second day being rainy.

Once Jennifer, Jasmine and Cedar returned home to school and work, I headed for the mountains. There are lots of really, really awesome roads to ride and some great hills to climb. Coming back from South Tirol, Italy into Austria I took the Grossglockner High Alpine Road which crosses a pass at 2500 meters. In the morning I left Heiligenblut (translates to something like Holy Blood. At the grave yard at the church there is book with the names of all the climbers that died trying to get up Grossglockner, the highest mountain in Austria at 3800 m. Because I did not want to see my name in that book I decided to skip trying to get up there. When my dad was about 20 he climbed it.) By the time I got half way up the pass the weather had gotten quite bad. By the time I reached the pass it was 4 degrees and raining.