Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 4

On our second day of this road trip to the Eastern side of Switzerland, we drove from Andermatt (after a detour to Airolo and San Gotthard pass) to St. Moritz.

How about a bit of Bach for this stretch of the road trip:

We took Hauptstrassen 19 running alongside the river Vorderrhein (which feeds into the Rhine) to Flims, crossing the canton border from Uri to Graubünden, and passing through a string of picture-perfect villages.

The famous Glacier Express also runs through this valley.  It is 90 years old in 2020 and claims to be the slowest express train in the world. See the avalanche barrier (photo below on the left) protecting the road and the track.

The tourist train with panoramic windows and catering onboard runs a 8-hour journey from Zermatt to St Moritz covering a 290-km length that includes 91 tunnels and 291 viaducts. This train is the best option to see this area without driving.  We might use it to see areas that are not reachable by car in the future.  Highly recommended.

We just caught sight of one going over a bridge above us.

Before the village of Disentis, we passed but did not stop at Oberalpass 6706 feet (2044 m).

This pass is important logistically, and different from the others because not only it has a small lake (Oberalpsee), it also has a train station, a ski area, and a lighthouse!

The 14 m-tall lighthouse was installed in 2010 as a tourist attraction and came from the river Rhine further downstream.

This was a local train which runs between the villages and uses the same viaducts and track as the Glacier Express.

We turned South on A13 towards Thursis but detoured to see Viamala-schlucht (see post here), before continuing to Albula.

Joining the national highway A3 at Albula, we passed Lake Marmorera within the boundary of Parc Ela.

The road became twisty again as we started our ascent towards the fifth mountain pass – Julierpass.  But this road is nowhere near the spectacles of Grimselpass and Furkapass we saw the day before.  Apparently, certain sections of this road were rebuilt in 2009 to reduce the number of serpentine turns.

Julierpass at 7493 feet (2284 m) in the Albula range of the Alps connects the Engadin valley with the rest of Graubünden.

Julierpass lies between Piz Lagrev (10,384 feet, 3165 m) and Piz Julier (11,090 feet; 3380 m), and crosses the watershed / drainage divide between the basins of the Rivers Rhine and Danube.

Historically, the romans built a temple of Jupiter on top of the pass.  There are two buildings now – the red one with lots of windows is the Julier Theatre built by Origen – an organization that maintains the Rhaeto-Romanic cultural heritage.  Rhaeto-Romance is a family of romance languages that include the fourth official language of Switzerland – Romansh.

It is a wooden construction and has multiple terraces inside.  The spectator terraces embrace a central stage which directs the view of the audience outside to the vastness of the landscape during a performance.  According to Origen’s web site, Julie Theatre will “dedicate itself to the world theatre, it will act with the seasons and reinterpret the mountain pass as a place of culture.”

The other building is a tower but we cannot find a description about it. Both buildings were closed and there was no one around except curious motorists.

From this point on, the drive was all downhill to Silvaplana 5,955 ft (1,815 m) and Highway 27 took us to St. Moritz – 5,978 ft (1,822 m).

We arrived at our hotel in St Moritz after 7 pm and concluded the long day of driving with a nice dinner.

In two days, we managed to see Grimselpass, Furkapass, St Gotthard pass, Oberlap pass and Julierpass – watersheds of major rivers of Northern and Southern Europe.  It was mountaineering by car.  Ideally, we would like to have experienced the vast openness, forever-changing cloud formations, and muted colors of the Alpine landscape by hiking.  We are considering this trip as a preview.

Click to see our earlier posts on this road trip, part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Viamala-schlucht, Graubünden

On the second day of our road trip to St. Moritz, after St Gotthard Pass (6,909 ft; 2,106 m), we detoured to see the Viamala Gorge (Viamala-schlucht) in the canton of Graubünden. Click the following links to see our whirlwind tour of these Alpine mountain passes Grimselpass, Furkapass and St Gottard pass. The fourth pass will be featured in our next post.

The gorge was first called the “Evil Road” by mule drivers (“Via Mala” in Romansch) as it was a major obstacle on the approach to the Alpine passes of Splügen and San Bernardino.

Viamala lies between the small town of Thusis and Andeer, and had been recognized since Roman times.  The gorge was created by glacial ice and the water of the Upper Rhine (Hinterrhein) carving into the mountain for thousands of years, resulting in steep cliffs as much as 300 meters deep from top to bottom.

Instead of music, try some natural sounds of water.

Various bridges and tunnels were built over the last few hundreds of years to give better access to this part of the Alps.  The first stone bridge was built in the 1400’s followed by two others built in the 1700’s.  For a motorist with a map, it is still quite confusing.  As a motorway (A13) was built in 1967 along the river near the top of the gorge, one has to find the right exit to reach the visitor center below the highway.  Viamala is only open from April 1 to November 1.

In 1903, a set of stairs was built to enable touristic exploration of the gorge.  In 2010’s, a new visitor center was built by local architects near where once a kiosk stood. It is a strange-looking, modern concrete structure, looking more like a military installation.

The building is positioned at the edge of a 60 meter deep cliff and acts as a transition from the road into the gorge. The placement of the walls, the terrace and the stairs follow the topography.

While the structure appears closed towards the road except the narrow horizontal window, the other faces of the building are furnished with large window panes, as high as the room itself, which frame the impressive landscape.

The visitor center has a cafe and a small souvenir shop stocking guide books and even a 1934 Swiss novel about a murder in Viamala (later adapted into a film and TV show).

This canyon is probably one of the narrowest part of the gorge.  A 359-step staircase descends to the canyon center bringing the visitor face-to-face with the lower half of the canyon.

Half way down the stairs, the path crosses over one channel of the narrow canyon and splits into two.

The path that goes upstream leads to another set of descending stairs which bores through the rock and ends at a viewing platform.

Not quite near the bottom of the canyon, we were wondering where the water level will be in spring/early summer when the snow melts.

The sight and sound must be spectacular here with a much larger volume of water coming down from the glaciers and mountains.

The rushing water carried big boulders from somewhere upstream and left the biggest ones stuck between the walls of the channel.  

The water in the channel cascades from one big boulder to the next, and gushes through tight gaps.

Over the years, the water sculpted the sides of the channel which are now smooth and contoured.  These zoomed-in photos do not do justice to the narrowness and depth of the canyon.

The other path that heads downstream follow the channel hugging one side of the canyon.  It felt a bit like a tunnel as the overhanging rock almost touches the other side of the canyon wall.

It was shady and humid inside the canyon. The smooth rock surfaces that are now exposed suggest that they are underwater seasonally depending on the volume of flow.

The smooth rock faces had been washed by running water and therefore cannot hold onto any soil. The upper surfaces are covered by a carpet of mosses.

This passage ends in a small viewing platform overlooking a slightly wider section of the canyon.

There is another parking area further downstream where one can get closer to the water.

But we had to get to St Moritz before dark, so off we went to the last mountain pass.

Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 3

For the first night of this short trip, we stayed in Andermatt (1437 m).  It is a mountain village in the canton of Uri, and has been the historical center of north-south and east-west traverses of Switzerland.

The village is connected by three Alpine passes: the Oberalp Pass (6,706 ft; 2,044 m.) to the east connecting the Surselva in the canton of Graubünden, the St Gotthard Pass (6,909 ft; 2,106 m.) to the south connecting with the Valle Leventina in canton of Ticino, and the Furka Pass (7,992 ft; 2,436 m.) to the west connecting with the Obergoms in canton of Valais, where we came from the previous day. To the north the steeply descending Schöllenen Gorge links Andermatt with Göschenen (1080m, 3540 ft).

I picked this piece of music (from an old Peter Greenaway film) to accompany us to mountain pass number 3.

It appears that Andermatt is undergoing an ambitious construction program to expand it into a luxury mountain resort.  We stayed at the new Radisson Blu Hotel which is housed in a multi-storey complex that includes luxury apartments (as holiday homes) and a concert hall.  Sue really enjoyed the hotel’s spa and very modern 4-lane stainless steel swimming pool with turn markings.

Driving on the new third Devil’s Bridge (Teufelsbrücke, built 1958) over the river Reuss, we noticed the graphic on the left (see photo below). Dozens of medieval stone arch bridges (also named Devil’s Bridge) in Europe were built with heroic efforts given the challenging conditions like here, where legend has it that the local populace made a bargain with the devil for the bridge in exchange for their souls. An older second bridge built in 1830 is situated underneath it and the first wooden bridge across Schöllenen Gorge was built around 1220.

Our plan on the second day was to drive over to the St Gotthard Pass but we took a wrong turn and descended the Schöllenen Gorge to Göschenen.  Located at the northern end of the Gotthard Road Tunnel and the Gotthard Rail Tunnel lies Göschenen and its railway station. The village grew up around a bridge over the Reuss.  As a result of our unintended detour, we had to joined the A2 motorway and entered the Gotthard Road Tunnel heading South in the direction of Italy.

Our course change was irreversible since we did not notice any place to turn around before entering the tunnel. Fifteen minutes later, we emerged from the tunnel (17 km, 10.5 miles) outside the town of Airolo (see below) in the Canton of Ticino. The tunnel was constructed in 1980 and was the longest in the world at that time. It runs entirely within Switzerland, consists of only one bidirectional tube with two lanes and is notorious for traffic jams. I was glad that traffic was moving smoothly through the tunnel on that day. Unlike the Grand San Bernard tunnel which crosses the Swiss and Italian border further west, this tunnel is apparently free as long as you have paid the annual fee for motorway access (vignette automobile).

To get to the St Gotthard Pass, we drove all the way back up to the top from the southern side of the Alps, using initially the old road – Tremola San Gottardo – which is the longest road monument in Switzerland and like old buildings, it is listed in an inventory of historic roads.

Looking back at Airolo and the Leventina valley.

It is also one of the highest paved roads in Europe. Located on the left side of the Val Tremola mountain, in one stretch over a length of four kilometers it climbs a height of 300 meters in 24 hairpin bends.

Sue was driving (and I was busy photographing everything) – there were just endless twists and turns.  Half way up, we joined the National Road 2, expecting that the now-unimportant road to be less maintained, but it was pristine, looking like when it was first paved in 1951. For more information on this road, click here for the website of History of Airolo.

This detour was not planned, but we ended up seeing some spectacular sights on the way down the Schöllenen Gorge and during the climb from Airolo (1,175 m; 3,855 ft) back up to the St Gotthard pass (Passo del San Gottardo) at 2,091 m (6,860 ft).

Once we reached the pass, the view opens up to a high plateau.  There is a cafe/bar (biker’s meeting place), hotel, restaurant, hospice, souvenir shop, museum, historical fortress and several small lakes.

As it was a nice day, the parking area was crowded with cars and a few tour buses, including a Swiss Post Bus.

It was the busiest mountain pass we have seen for the entire trip.  Among the five passes, the quietest was Furkapass (click here to see our previous post).

A chapel dedicated to Saint Gotthard of Hildesheim (960-1038 AD, canonized 1131), who was considered the patron saint of mountain passes, was built on the southern slope of the pass and consecrated by the archbishop of Milan in 1230.  The pass soon became known after the saint, by as early as 1236.  For such a historical place, it was a shame that we did not get to see the Museo Nazionale del San Gottardo (photo below) which was closed for renovation.

The pass is a continental divide between the Rhine, which flows into the North Sea and the river Ticino towards Milan, which after leaving Switzerland flows into the Po and ultimately into the Adriatic Sea.

We saw quite a few wind turbines being installed here, understandably a rather windy place (not on the day we visited).  Some were not fully installed.  What we did not see here was the fortress – Sasso – which required a fee for entrance.  In 1886 the first fortress was built and many secrets surround the buildings which include miles of corridors, elevators, bunkers, and gun stands. Even a hospital lies hidden in the rock.

A set of bronze statutes remind us of the pilgrims, traders, tourists and mountain guides who have been passing through here for more than a thousand years.

We left the St Gottard pass around midday, headed back towards Andermatt, and continued our journey eastward towards the fourth and fifth mountain passes – Oberalpass and Julierpass, before our destination – St Moritz.

 

Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 2

Continuing with our road trip (the start of the trip is here) …

Our selection of music to accompany us to the second mountain pass of the day is by Max Richter.

To get to Andermatt where we spent the first night of the road trip, we had to traverse another mountain pass – the Furkapass.  We retraced our drive from Grimselpass back down to Gletsch (1759 m), cross the Rhône in town, and then zigzag up the mountain on the other side towards Hotel Belvedere.

There was a sense of anticipation on this stretch of the drive because Hotel Belvedere which is perched dramatically half-way up the mountain, is visible from all angles. It was particularly eye-catching when you looked up from the Rhône valley on approach to Gletsch.

We parked next to the closed hotel and had our lunch at a snack bar.  When I asked for a hotdog after seeing a photo of a frankfurter, the person behind the counter grunted “no” and noted they only serve the sausage with brown square bread, and not in a roll.  Mustard on the side.  I guess people who live in the harsh mountain environment do not smile much.

I downloaded this picture of the Rhône Glacier in 1900 from Wikipedia (see below). The edge of the glacier was near the Grand Hotel Glacier du Rhône at Gletsch near the base of the valley. We took a picture of the same Grand Hotel (see earlier post here) and the glacier was nowhere in sight now.

In 120 years, the glacier has regressed, presumably due to climate change, upwards to a point where we took these pictures next to Hotel Belvedere.

Water from the glacier collects in a small lake which feeds a stream that runs downhill to Gletsch and beyond as river Rhône.

This is the source of the Rhône (at 2,208 m, 7,244 ft) which empties into Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). In Geneva, the Rhône enters France, continues to Lyon and then southward to Arles, and reaches eventually the Mediterannean. The length of this river is 813 km (505 miles).

A souvenir store was at the end of the parking area of Hotel Belvedere which also serves as the entrance to the Rhône Glacier Ice Grotto (Rhonegletscher Eisgrotte). Only a short walk from the store, the grotto apparently includes a chamber and a 100-meter long tunnel under/inside the glacier which is dug fresh each year. We went to one such ice cave in Chamonix and did not feel the need to see it again. Click here to see our post about that ice cave visit in Chamonix.

Three km up the road from Hotel Belvedere is the Furkapass (2431 m; 7969 feet). The European watershed (continental divide) runs along the pass.  This is one of the snowiest regions in Switzerland.

The road was built initially for strategic military reasons and was the longest pass road in Switzerland when it was opened in 1866.

Once the mountain pass was opened, coaches started services on the route bringing tourists to the area during the heyday of Alpine tourism in the 19th century.

Apparently nowadays, more than 250,000 people cross the pass each year on cycles or motorcycles, in private cars, in Alpine PostBuses or by historic steam train. We stopped at the Grand Tour of Switzerland scenic photo spot.

The Grand Tour of Switzerland is a 1,600 kilometre driving tour through the most beautiful areas of Switzerland, going over five Alpine passes, passing twelve UNESCO World Heritage sites and biospheres and running along 22 lakes.  It is a great site to do research for a road trip in Switzerland (https://grandtour.myswitzerland.com/en/).

Looking down towards the valley from the pass …

This mountain pass became famous after it was used in a car “chase” location in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. One curve on the east side of the pass is even named “James Bond Strasse”.  Here is the James Bond clip on Youtube.

We reached Furkapass and drove down from the east side of the pass to Realp using the same stretch of road as James Bond, towards Andermatt.  The road is just as narrow and curvy as it was shown in the film.  As we descend the Reuss valley, we passed a number of villages with wooden houses and whitewashed churches.

We were using our own car for the trip, so the drive was comfortable as much as it was exhilarating.  All these roads are closed during the winter months and their open/close status can be checked online at Alpinepasse.

Our hotel at Andermatt was a modern luxury high rise but maintained the warm ambiance of a mountain lodge.  We had a quick dinner at the hotel and promptly went to bed, after a long but enjoyable day of driving.