So we were up early today in St Moritz after a good night's sleep in our huge room. Went downstairs for the buffet breakfast - another step up. This is a four star hotel and full of American tour groups - so lots of loud people at breakfast (not what we English like - we (I) are far too refined (sleepy) for noise first thing in the morning - plus they were being obnoxious, had feet up on the chairs etc - it's just not right!)
Anyway the buffet was the biggest we have yet seen - loads of cold cuts of meat, huge selection of cheese, hot food (eggs / bacon / sausages (2 types, 1 x veal, 1 x spicy) and even a water boiler so you could boil your own egg (must be for us Brits!) lots of salad, breakfast cereals, yoghurt etc etc. All very exciting but I think the novelty of a buffet breakfast is wearing off on us now so we didn't indulge as much as we have been doing!
We got packed and then got the hotel's mini bus back to the station. It was literally a fleeting visit to St Moritz, we didn't even get to see the town at all. Another place to return to. At the station we got on board the Bernina Express which is the highest railway across the Alps and doesn't use a rack and pillion system - not sure how it does it to be honest. It had two locomotives at the front heaving it up and breaking on the way down, but even with those I don't know how it does it? The scenery was absolutely amazing - different from yesterday in that it wasn't green valleys with wooden chalets but up up up beyond the treeline, amongst the ski lifts and gondolas. We also saw some big reservoirs which help feed the hydro electric apparatus. The top of the line was Ospizio Bernina at 2,253 meters - this is where the water catchments come together. If a raindrop falls one way it will end up in the Adriatic Sea and another way in the Black Sea. It is also where the languages all come together too - I can't get my head around how the school system works here and how many languages they must do?
The train stopped at a place called Alp Grüm where we could get off the train for 10 minutes - what a place too - was magnificent. Then we headed down towards the valley a long long way below us. I lost count of the number of times we turned on the way down, it is nuts to know it was a regular train too.
Towards the bottom we came across the Brusio Circular Viaduct which took the train on a 360 degree turn as it headed down, ending up with the train going through the arches of the viaduct on its way down to the valley. Does that make sense? As soon as I saw it, I recognised it from one of the train programmes I have watched at home with the boys - I thought it was more spectacular than the Lang Wasser Viaduct yesterday. If you have a really long train you would be able to see it almost tying itself in a knot!
We got to Tirano, the end of the trip (and in Italy) around 11.30 after receiving the best freebie of the trip - a train tin of chocolates. It was steaming hot! We were hoping to dump our luggage and then go for a wander - but it was CHF8 per piece which is extraordinary for 3 hours! We kept our luggage with us and bumped it along the cobbles of the town (all towns around here seem to have cobbles which means when you are wheeling your suitcase you make a racket!) I had seen something about a train museum in the town, however, the website was wholly in Italian so we weren't 100% sure about it. We headed over, it was very shut - oh hum.
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| Gelato! |
We went in search of somewhere for lunch and found a cafe with a covered outdoor area. We sat down, looked at the menu and laughed at the prices - paninis were €5 each - cost for lunch for the 3 of us came to the same amount it would be for 1 of us in Switzerland. We took a while having our lunch and then decided to try to find some real gelato - when in Italy etc etc. The places we found on the map were all closed, but as luck would have it, we found one whilst just walking past. We went in - couldn't fathom out the flavours, and when we tried to translate them on our phones, it wasn't much better. Feel completely lost here - we don't speak any Italian at all - took a while to work out grazie, si etc. Anyway, Tom ended up with a nutella one, Matt chocolate and I had bilberry (still not sure what that is - but it was half way between an ice cream and sorbet and very refreshing)
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We walked back to the square in front of the train station and found a bench under a shady tree to people watch a while. At 2.20 we got the Bernina Express bus to Lugano. There is no railway from Tirano back into Switzerland unless you double back. The only other route is to Milan, so you have to get a bus across to Lugano. The bus was completely full and the air conditioning not working all that well (true to form - all Swiss public transport seems to be warm, but then it is unseasonably hot at the moment so I'm guessing their air conditioning just can't cope with the heat?). The first part of the journey was down a wide valley which was pretty dull - full of industrial zones, car show rooms, furniture show rooms, warehouses, distribution centres, supermarkets etc etc. It seemed to go on and on and on, we couldn't fathom where all the customers would come from as the settlements along the valley were pretty small towns. Tom fell asleep - it was hot after all - Matt got a picture - poor lad - not looking his best!
After a while the road turned off the valley and headed up into the mountains - using a number of tunnels and hairpin bends. At some points we were millimetres away from hitting the side of the coach with rocks / buildings on the side of the road, I'm not sure how the driver did it?! It was a pretty ride at the end, as we hugged the shores of Lake Lugano and headed into the town (significant settlement of over 150,000). We were glad to get off the coach at the end, although it was still very hot in Lugano. Luckily the hotel we are staying in was at the bottom of a hill, a cobbled hill of course, so we clattered our way down.
Once again we were struck with how rich everyone looked. All the ladies are a shade of orange and dressed in designer labels and all the labels are here: Gucci, Hermes, Bally, Prada etc etc. I felt very out of place in my vest and trousers, sweating away and looking very dishevelled. We found our hotel, Hotel Walter au Lac, which is right on the lake in the centre of town, couldn't ask for a better location. We got our room - it is a suite of rooms - so Tom has his own bedroom, Matt and I have our own bedroom and we have a communal bathroom - how lovely, shame we are only here for a night (we seem to say that a lot!). We all had showers, 40 mins chill-ax time and then got dressed to explore the town and find dinner. We got free transport card with the hotel booking and there is a funicular from the town to the station so we rode that as a recce for tomorrow morning and then walked back down again. We came across a restaurant serving Italian food for CHF18 which is cheap so we headed in. We had fun as the lady running the cafe had no English and of course we had no Italian. Luckily the little Italian we do know is food based, so we managed to work out most of the menu. Then the lady found someone who spoke English to help us out, we weren't far out with our understanding which was reassuring. It is always fun using sign language to try to get yourself understood. She recommended the lasagna, so Tom and I plumped for that and Matt went for another pasta dish. We were all happy and ate every last crumb of it.
We then did our usual evening walk, this time along the prom of Lake Lugano. Lugano is a handsome place - it has two lumpy mountains rising out of the bay - they look like James Bond islands - we reckon that there are secret bunkers of all kinds in them. We found a park which had some steps down to the river, in an instant, Tom was in the lake! That boy! He loved it though and who can blame him, it was a really muggy night.
We got back to the hotel, had another set of showers and enjoyed being in our air conditioned rooms!
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