Our final alpine pass in Switzerland

Friday 2nd October
Our final alpine pass in Switzerland
Although we have another mountain road pass ,the Ofen,at 2149 metres to get over today to get to Italy and tonights accommodation, it won’t present a great deal of climbing for RR as we are already at about 1800 metres at Silvaplana.This will also be the final mountain pass that we need to negotiate in Switzerland on this adventure.
It has dawned another beautiful day and we have to keep pinching ourselves to remind us that on all the days we have been travelling since 19th April that we have had only 3 days when it has been too wet to get about sightseeing.
Whilst it is fine and sunny it is also pretty cool outside in single digits but the prospect for Italy is much warmer according to weather.com,in the mid 20’s.
We did the usual thing and spent all our last Swiss Francs on lunch for while we are on the road and diesel and hit the road heading north east on route #27.The land here looks very dry and many of the meadows had water,probably recycled from the milking sheds,spraying out to keep the grass green where the cows are at least.
The mountains in the foreground have either brown tufted grass or higher up just rock and you have to look further back and upwards to catch the occasional glimpse of the remaining snow from the last winter season.
A switch to route #28 occured at Zernez and we changed direction to the south east and started the climb up the pass.As usual the Audi drivers on the road have their own rules for overtaking and we watched in disbelief as one of them zigzagged in and out of the queue we were in behind a local farmer and his tractor doing 20kph,showing no concern for the oncoming traffic!!
As we had expected the rise up the pass was an easy one and apart for a couple of tight corners RR would have done it in 4th gear quite easily.The surrounding scenic views of the mountains weren’t as interesting as the other passes we have been over but then we had been spoilt by the grandeur and dramatic views of the Furka,Simplon and of course the truck incident on the Maloja passes.!!
One thing we have noticed having now travelled twice into Italy from the Swiss side of the alps is that the descents into Italy seem steeper and longer.Perhaps it is the way the roads are constructed and we must add that the Swiss have built their roads to last and had all been in very good condition.Whereas you know you have entered Italy as the road width is narrower and the surface not as good to drive on.
We had another seamless border crossing at Mustair.There was no one on the Swiss side to farewell us and a few metres down the road at the Italian check point,the two people on duty were chatting to each other.One just gave a wave of his hand as Gretchen just drove on through.We have calculated that by now,had we got a stamp as every border crossing our passports would have had something on each page!!
There was a long drive down a valley after we left the border behind of nearly 50 kilometres.It was a relatively narrow valley with the floor taken up apple trees .Even when we came across a small town the apple trees were growing right up to where the houses started.We hadn’t really thought about Italy as an apple growing nation but what we saw in that 50 km of valley was enough to feed the country for a year!!
The apple harvest was well underway and there were a lot of trucks on the road all heading up towards the pack house’s, that were located every few kilometres, to pick up their loads.
As we came down more in altitude, vineyards started to become prominent amongst the apple orchards and also on the terraced lower hillsides of the valley. Like the apples the grape pick appeared to have been completed too.Perhaps colder weather is due soon!!
The road down the valley has been a quick one to travel on even though it is not a highway.It runs down the centre of the valley avoiding going through the small towns and villages and is also elevated in many places which means that the apple trees are planted right up close on both sides.The road must look ugly from the villages below where it is elevated though
The towns in this region of Italy have two names and we were to discover later from the guy on the reception at the hotel as to why.This part of Italy for many years was under Austrian Hapsburg rule and many of the local people speak German as their first language and Italian as their second and by law everything here is bi-lingual.Some of the names look similarily spelt like Merano/Meran and Tirolo/Tirol but others are quite different like Bolzano/Bozen.The ones with the “o” at the end are of course the Italian spelling.So there is a little something to keep in your necktop computer for your next Trivia Quiz night down at the local.
After avoiding the city of Bolzano we switched onto route #12 another elevated road in part and also avoiding the villages and towns as we swung in a southerly direction.The A22,a motorway ran alongside the road we were on but it had very limited exit points on its way down to Trento and we had our instructions from Google that we needed to head east up into the hills at San Michele.
We found the narrow local road and twisted and turned climbing all the time through vineyards to the village that was below the hotel we were to stay at.Thank goodness it was a quiet road today as people seemed to busy in the wineries after the harvest as the road through the village for most part was just wide enough for RR although we didn’t feel the need to bring the wing morrows in on this occasion.
The hotel was at the part of the road where the scattered housing and vineyards stopped.It is a family run place and the guy at the desk spoke very good English with a slight American accent.Our room is again in the Italian style with a small balcony overlooking trees.
We had arrived mid afternoon and had not had much exercise out of the car on the way so Gretchen thought a walk would be a good idea.So armed with a map of the area from the reception we headed off up the hill.The road took a steady climb but at least it was sealed and we made good progress.At one point it became more than a steady rise and we were thinking about giving it away but we ventured on aiming to see what was at the end.
The walk had been through forest all the way and we discovered that the pass or saddle that we had climbed to had been used by Napolean and his army when he invaded this part of what was Austria.There was a plaque set up commemorating this event although how many people ever come up to this remote spot is beyond us.
There was also information boards about how migrating birds pass through this area and a rather unique way they used to catch them in a line of trees that you can still see in a clearing.The mirating birds were lured into this line of trees by another bird in a cage that would be singing and then a scarecrow at the end of the line of trees would frighten the birds who would try to fly upwards but get caught in a net.The line of trees was curved so the birds couldn’t see the scarecrow until it was too late.All this came to an end in 1968 when better methods of catching and tagging the migrating birds was started.Oh the information you can get when you take a walk in the remote Italian hills and forest!!!!
The walk back down was much quicker of course and we a had a rest before dinner in the hotel dining room.The chicken veal was very tasty but a bit expensive(we are a captured audience up here in the hills kilometres to the valley floor and other restaurants)however the wine was cheaper to make up a bit.We shall have to balance the meal out budget with a cheap pizza or spaghetti at our next treat out.
So here we are in Italy with lots of interesting,historic and scenic places to visit and stay over the best part of October ahead.

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