Welcome to our Heiligenblut page for our 2003 summer holiday. We hope the photos give a feel for the resort and the walking, and that you find the links to other web pages helpful.

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Guide to Heiligenblut

HV Heiligenblut village and amenities TR Transport WA Walking OW Our walks

Walk Photos

If you have any questions, or suggestions to improve information given, please e-mail D and J.

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Heiligenblut Village and Ameneties.

The resort of Heiligenblut lies in the upper Molltal, a few miles south of the Grossglockner, Austria's highest mountain. Heiligenblut is in the province of Carinthia, just over the border from Salzburg province. The high alpine toll road, the Glocknerstrasse runs north from Heiligenblut reaching a height of over 2500m. The area around Heiligenblut is in the Hohe Tauern National Park.

South of Heiligenblut, the main road follows the Moll, passing villages such as Grosskircheim and Winklern. The nearest large town is Lienz, this is about an hour away by bus. Lienz is in the province of Ost-Tyrol.

Heiligenblut is a small village in a very picturesque setting. The centre of Heiligenblut is compact, with other parts of the village spread out mostly below the centre.

Because of it's position on the Glocknerstrasse, the village is popular with tourists, and particularly motorcyclists. It is quieter in the evening.

In the centre of the village there is a square with shops, cafes and banks. Here there is a tourist office where you can find information about local walks and the walking badges. The cable car station is situated close to the square, as is the church. On one side of the square is the village bandstand, where the local band gives weekly concerts.

There is a supermarket in the centre, and a larger one in the Winkel area of the village, where you also find the post office and bakery. A public swimming pool is about five minutes walk from the centre, and there is a information centre and small exhibition area for the National Park just down from the square.

We stayed at the Glocknerhof, which we would recommend. It is a 4 star hotel just across from the tourist office. It would be wise to book a room with a balcony, as the rooms without are at the front of the hotel on the main street which can be a tad noisy at times. The hotel is very comfortable with a swimming pool, steam rooms, sauna, beauty centre and fitness room. There is one large dining room and a bar. During the day there is a cafe on the terrace serving cakes, ice creams and drinks. It was very busy whilst we were there, and most of the British guests were well pleased with the hotel. The evening meals were very good, comprising of four courses. Starters and sweets were buffets, with soup and main courses being served at your table. Breakfasts were buffets with fresh fruit, cereals, bread rolls, meats, cheeses, eggs and bacon.

Our holiday was with Inghams, who at the time were the only main operator to this resort in summer. You could make your own arrangements - flying to Klangenfurt or Salzburg, then train to Lienz, and Post Bus to Heiligenblut.

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Transport.

There is a postbus service down the valley and on to Lienz, and also one up the valley to the Fran Josef Heights.

There is a bus stop just outside the Glocknerhof, timetables are posted at the bus stops, and are also available from the tourist office.

There is only one local cable car and that is the Schareck lift. If you are going to make a few journeys on this lift then it is probably worth buying the Carinthia Card. The card covers cable cars and admission to a number of attractions.

The lift runs daily from about July to early September, outside of this period the lift may run at weekends.

Lienz is about an hours ride on the Post Bus.

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Walking

Heiligenblut is an excellent walking area. The walking can be quite tough as there are steep slopes above the village. We wouldn't recommend it for those people wanting easy walking. There weren't many opportunities to bag peaks or visit mountain huts, but all walks are rewarded by excellent views. All but one walk we did was from the village or Franz Josef Heights. It is an area where it could be useful to have a car, as many of the valleys leading off from the main Moll valley are long, and have road access with car parks.

All the walks that we did were covered by the Grossglockner Heiligenblut traum-wanderkarte at a scale of 1:25000, this map was obtainable locally. Kompass map 39 at scale 1:50000 "Glocknergruppe NP Hohe Tuern" covers a larger area, and is useful if intending to do walks from some of the villages south of Heiligenblut.

There is a local walking badge, the stamping books are available at the tourist office. The bronze and silver badges required walking to selected points to collect letters. The gold badge requires bagging the huts in the area.

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Walks we did from Heiligenblut.

The walks have been described in chronological order.

Some of the photos can be found on Flickr

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This page was last updated on 14th March 2009.

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