Wechselpass | 980 METER | Aspang Pinggau

The Wechsel Pass is an Alpine pass between the Austrian federal states of Lower Austria and Styria. Its highest point, at 980 metres, is situated near the village of Mönichkirchen, and it connects the municipality of Grimmenstein in the Bucklige Welt region with the municipality of Pinggau at the foot of the mountain from which it takes its name, the Wechsel. It is crossed by the B 54 Wechselstraße, which, until the extension of the A 2 Südautobahn in the 1980s, was the most important road link between Vienna and Graz. This federal road is now also known as the ‘Panoramastraße’, a reference to the beautiful viewpoints along the route.
The Wechsel Pass lies on the eastern border of the Alps, in the Wechsel Mountains of the same name. Together with the Fischbach Alps and the Semmering, these form one of the last high barriers of the Alps to the east, before the terrain slopes gently down into the Pannonian Plain.