Sunday, Monday

His perspective

Sunday, we took the Bernina Express train to Tirano, Italy. The train is celebrating it’s 100th year and winds its way through the Bernina pass, alongside lakes, over stone viaducts and through several small towns and villages. In some towns the train runs down the middle of the street on its way to the station. Not many pix as the train has fixed windows and the glare caused problems. We had two hours in Tirano, a small town in far northern Italy. We stopped for lunch, Wilson had some lunch and wine, and we stopped for some ice cream on the way back to the station. The trip back was on the same route and single track.

We took a walk through Pontresina, up the hill to Kirche Santa Maria, which had a cornerstone from 1703. We took a stroll through the church cemetery (doesn’t everybody?) and then walked through the higher parts of the town. Some buildings dated to the 17th century and had their restoration dates marked on them. Traditional Swiss window boxes were everywhere. Then back to the hotel for the necessities of life, i.e. charging the cell phone, charging the camera battery, charging the photo storage device, editing pics (on which I am now 2 days behind).

Wilson does the Alps

Monday is our last day in the Engadine Valley. Tomorrow we head back to Zurich. Today would be another top of the world day. We started off on the Diavolezza cable car which took us up 2900 meters, just short of 10,000ft. There were clouds today and the mountain top was quite windy and had a little bit of snow on the ground. I actually put on a jacket….in August, a wonderful thing to have to do. Took lots of pix, Wilson posed for a few. The scenery changed constantly as the sun peeked out and the clouds obscured some mountain peaks,

Next stop was the Corvatsch cable car, the highest in the area at 3300 meters. Corvatsch overlooks Silvaplana, where we were day before yesterday watching the Moth boats. Looking down on Silvaplana, I understand the origins of its name, as it looks like a forested plain jutting out into the lake. Like, Diavolezza, skies were cloudy, except in some instances we were above the clouds. The wind was gone and the scenery was of course spectacular. We had a bowl of soup, more pics of course and then headed back down to Surlej, the town at the base of the cable car. We stopped at a bakery in the village of Celerina and picked up some fresh bread, salami, cheese and desert for this evening’s dinner.

Tomorrow, we drive back to Zurich. At this time through the foo-foo towns of Klosters and Davos.