Explore Brenner, Austria

 The forecast for today was starting off good but cloud coming in through the day ...  however with Bryon's problems with his back we would take it easy and do some exploring.  First I wanted to go into Italy and look at the other side of the frontier ridge, as well as also looking at the trains on Brenner pass.

Then we would see what could be found about the routes going up from the pass to the East, and whatever else took our fancy.

The pass was nothing spectacular and was really a train station with a host of retail opportunities for the general shopper, especially those looking for outlet shops.

We soon dropped down the other side and made our way up the Pflerschtal valley. The other side of the Grubenkopf.. the Northern slopes were vastly different with steep rocky faces.

We also had a quick look at the Ladruns ski area... One of three small resorts all gathered around this valley.

After this we headed back up the pass .. and after obligatory stop to prove the retail experience was not for us, but also to pick up some supplies for lunch, we had a look to see if we could get up any of the little roads and what he access was like to the Eastern side ... sad to say it was all private roads, so not much success there. 

Thinking about somewhere for lunch, we headed back down the Austrian side and cut away at St Judok. We followed the road down past Schmirn. As we came around one of the bends we saw one of the routes from last year that we did in very low cloud ...  Hohe Napf. - the first time we had seen where we had been.

At the end of the valley the road finished at a roundabout - Madern.  We had a little wander down the farm track to the East, to look around the corner ... not much was visible in the clouds that had now descended, but sufficient to say it would be a long day to do anything here, or else lots more snow!

So after a leisurely lunch we headed back for a lazy day at the Alte Poste ... and some bagpipe playing for the locals