Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Riding The Bernina Express, Part 2

To pick up where Part 1 left off, we stopped at a place called Alp Grüm, near the top of the Bernina Pass, which gave us a chance to take some pictures.  Before I got back on the train, I took this shot of the structure through which we had passed just before stopping.  It includes a slanted roof supported by spaced poles, and appears to be intended to protect trains from rockslides and avalanches.  I've also seen the same sort of thing built over roads in the Alps.

After the train resumed its course, we descended down the other side of the pass through numerous switchbacks.  These curves gave me a chance to take pictures of where the train had just been, such as over this viaduct.

We stopped for a few minutes in Brusio, to let a train going in the opposite direction to pass.  From here, we can see two houses, the top of a church tower, the sides of the narrow valley in which we're traveling, and more mountains in the background.  The houses aren't slanted.  I merely held my camera at a slightly odd angle.

Here's some more of Brusio, looking back uphill in the general direction from which we approached.

The front of the train goes around the Brusio viaduct, where the track circles under itself, as seen from our position in the last car.

The front of the train continues toward the spot where the track goes under the viaduct, passing three sculptures.  The white line above the train is the track uphill from the viaduct, where we had been shortly before.

Continuing downhill after passing under the viaduct, we observe a step in the process of making Swiss cheese.

As our train continued southward, I saw that the tracks often ran parallel to roads, crossed roads at sharp angles, and in a few places actually ran down one side of the street.  We eventually crossed the border and reached our destination of Tirano, Italy.  Not far from the track is the Santuario della Madonna di Tirano.

The Fiume Adda runs through the center of town.

To get around Tirano, it may be advantageous to board another type of "train".

After some sightseeing, and lunch at Antica Osteria dell'Angelo, we returned to St. Moritz by bus.

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