The law of Sod came into effect today. Having spent the first few hours of the morning swapping hotels to save a few bob, the plan was to spend a day exploring the Bernina railway right up to the summit of the line at Ospizio Bernina, which is 7403 feet (or 2256 m if you prefer) above sea level. It’s where one of the pictures from my previous blog was taken.
The day started well. I caught the local train from Tirano and shared a carriage with a lovely group which consisted of three retired couples from the Philippines. Then we were unexpectedly joined by a face who was rather familiar – in the shape of a retired railwayman from the UK. What are the chances? Well, on this railway they’re probably pretty good!
The only problem was the weather. I now realise just how lucky I was to be able to get the pictures I took on the way the other day, as the higher we got, the thicker the cloud became. Close to the summit we literally couldn’t see a thing as we were in cloud level. Whilst my Philipino friends departed at Alp Grum, where there *should* be fantastic views (and a lovely restaurant in the station building). I stayed on for one more stop to Ospizio Bernina. It’s a bit of a desolate place, but with a wild beauty. Like Grum, there’s a small restaurant in the station building, but be warned – it doesn’t accept credit cards – only cash. I hung around hoping the clouds would lift, but it didn’t look like it would be anytime soon so I grabbed a few pictures and caught the next train back to Grum, where I joined my new friends for a very chatty and convivial lunch. Afterwards, they headed up to St Moritz whilst I headed back down to Poschiavo which is a lovely old town but also a depot for the railway.
The more we dropped down towards Tirano the better the weather became which allowed me to get a half-decent shot of the spiral and viaduct at Bruscio. Having got back to Tirano I did make one more brief foray up the railway, but this time to get pictures from the very back of the train. By this time, most of the local trains were pretty empty, giving you a choice of seats and windows to lean out of. But by now, the sun had disappeared behind the Alps, so I gave up and came home. Depending on how the weather performs tomorrow, I may have one more crack at pictures at the summit on my way to Zurich, even though I’ll have a suitcase with me so won’t be able to go far. We’ll see.
In the meantime, here’s a few pictures from today.
Back in town – and as it’s my last night in Italy, I treated myself to another pizza. God, now I’m stuffed! It’s back to eating salads from supermarkets for the rest of the week, just to make up for it! Cracking pizza tho’….
I’ve a small favour to ask…
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Cheers,
Paul
