My Driving-Vacation to Spulgen Pass

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Have you ever felt that you have been called? It is the unexplainable calling from within you. If you try to explain this calling to your families and friends, they will think you have lost it. The Alps that span across Switzerland and Italy are not as colossal as the inspirational but deadly K-2 in Tibet. But once you witness the grandiose view before me, you too will hear that calling from within you.

It was just after midnight and the full moon lit these vast valleys and the gigantic white capped mountains. I had both car windows fully opened. The fresh pristine Alpine spring air filled the interior of the car I was driving at that time. For a moment, I thought I could smell the ancient glaciers that shone brightly. The mountains here glow auras.

I pulled over at some non-descript exit of A13 near the San Bernardino valley. It was very quiet, not eerie, but peaceful. I could hear a distant waterfall. I could see sharply every contour of the mountains. With no other soul near me, I didn’t feel alone or lonely. I felt something that I rarely experience; the feeling of peace, the feeling of being in the now. I didn’t have to rush to any places, I didn’t have to complete any tasks, and I didn’t have to think about any problems to solve. I didn’t even remember who I was. I was just there, to be…

Splügen Pass

Splügen Pass is a mountain pass linking Splügen (Switzerland) and Chiavenna (Italy). I still could not believe what I was seeing even after I had been staring at the spaghetti road draped on an Alps before me for a long time. I was awed by this Photoshoped-like view. I thought the view like this existed only in the land of Harry Potters and Lord of the Ring. I was not hallucinating due to the thin air of the 2,113 meter elevation. I had to make sure that my digital camera was working because I needed a proof that I was here.

Earlier in the morning, I started climbing the access road from Splügen village just off A13 in southeastern Switzerland before the famous San Bernardino tunnel. This road was originally a trail established by the Roman. In the medieval time, it was used as a merchant line connecting Italy to the important commercial centers in the upper-Rhine and Danube territories...@driving-vacation

More pictures...

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