Our day started with the best breakfast yet, despite the fact it was 1e more than previous breakfast’s so far. The plum flan was the highlight and had a texture which was similar to shortbread.
Anyhow, today’s postcard will be considerably shorter than previous entries because we only did one thing today – we rode the Bernina Express from Tirano to St Moritz.
There are two stations in Tirano, one run by an Italian train company, which we used to get here yesterday and will use to return to Milan tomorrow. The other is run by The Rhaetian Railway (RhB) which goes into Switzerland, which is where we needed to be to board The Bernina Express.
I’ve included a chunk of info from the RhB website, which should give you an overview of the trains and line it runs on – so I’ll omit that in my account. However, I can’t begin to convey how breathtaking the scenery was as the train climbed over the Alps into St Moritz. The other thing to note is the huge gradients the train tackles, considerably more than any of our trains are capable of (at least, the ones I’ve been on).
I guess it goes without saying that the trains are specifically designed to handle this terrain and manage it without a struggle considering they don’t use a rack and pinion approach you begin to appreciate how well engineered they are.
The line uses many circles of track to gain altitude without needing miles and miles of track. The reason I’ve told you that will be clear in a moment, so “bear with”!
A few minutes after leaving Tirano we saw a sign welcoming us into Switzerland, (that’s how close it is to the border,) about 20 minutes after that we arrived at a stunningly beautiful lake. (To avoid confusion – not one of the Italian lakes.)
We then saw this lake repeatedly as we climbed and our altitude increased, I have a number of photos from different heights but won’t include all here. We saw two other lakes before we reached St Moritz, one of glacial water which was a strange pale green, reminiscent of carved Jade objects. And along the route we saw numerous pretty alpine flowers, many of which I recognised from our garden – or at least they looked similar from our train window. At this point, I feel compelled to mention the vast amount of Lupins (yes, you did read that correctly) we saw not long after leaving St Moritz. They took me completely by surprise, as that was the last thing I’d expected to see. It would also be remiss of me not to mention the 10 minute stop (where you get off), at Alp Grum.
Once at St Moritz, the first thing you notice (aside from the different architecture) is the huge lake and then the colour of the water. It’s very blue – with a slight greenish tinge. The town itself is nestled in a valley, with very sharp slopes on both sides. To say the place monopolises on its name can’t be stated clearly enough. There’s every designer label, watch or ski gear store any self-respecting millionaire could wish for. You could be forgiven for thinking that if your face didn’t fit (as a shopkeeper), or your grandfather hadn’t lunched with the right people back in the day, your store wasn’t allowed in the town. E.g. aside from the famous bakery ‘Hastlemann’, we couldn’t find another bakery in town – we were there for 4 hours and had plenty of time to look around.
Both of us thoroughly enjoyed the day and loved riding the train so much, we’re considering going back and taking The Glacier Express another year.
